The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)
Sam Kean (editor)
Science
I had read a number of these pieces before, particularly in The Atlantic. Is there no great but little-known writing out there that this series could promote? The book opens with some editorial political rants, which I largely agree with but which could have been dropped. (That said, the piece on Scott Pruitt's dysfunctional EPA is predictably infuriating.)
The articles themselves are, not shockingly, good. I can't say that any of them stood out particularly, although Ross Anderson's "Welcome to Pleistocene Park" is jaw-dropping in its scope.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Book Review: Death at Breakfast
Death at Breakfast
John Rhodes
Mystery
Death at Breakfast is very much a matter of taste (har har!). To put it another way, it's a mixed bag. How much you'll like it will depend mostly on what kind of mystery reader you are.
Specifically, Death at Breakfast is a Golden-Age mystery of a fairly standard sort. A puzzle is given, characters move around asking questions, and a solution is revealed. If you're looking for depth of characterization, this is not the book for you; the detective character isn't even described, and the other characters are absolutely flat. A few hints at a love element are not an asset.
Nor, to be honest, is the puzzle especially startling. A reader well-versed in this subgenre will recognize a good many familiar elements. Applying meta-textual thinking will tell you who the killer is, too.
What remains is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. There are some ingenious clues, reliable pacing, and a clear explanation. I like this sort of thing; ergo, in spite of its limitations, I rather liked the book. I won't go out of my way to search down more John Rhodes, but I'll read him if I get the chance.
John Rhodes
Mystery
Death at Breakfast is very much a matter of taste (har har!). To put it another way, it's a mixed bag. How much you'll like it will depend mostly on what kind of mystery reader you are.
Specifically, Death at Breakfast is a Golden-Age mystery of a fairly standard sort. A puzzle is given, characters move around asking questions, and a solution is revealed. If you're looking for depth of characterization, this is not the book for you; the detective character isn't even described, and the other characters are absolutely flat. A few hints at a love element are not an asset.
Nor, to be honest, is the puzzle especially startling. A reader well-versed in this subgenre will recognize a good many familiar elements. Applying meta-textual thinking will tell you who the killer is, too.
What remains is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. There are some ingenious clues, reliable pacing, and a clear explanation. I like this sort of thing; ergo, in spite of its limitations, I rather liked the book. I won't go out of my way to search down more John Rhodes, but I'll read him if I get the chance.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Book Review: The Roman Hat Mystery
The Roman Hat Mystery
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee)
Mystery
The first Ellery Queen mystery; comments here apply equally. The titular hat is rather cleverly resolved, though.
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee)
Mystery
The first Ellery Queen mystery; comments here apply equally. The titular hat is rather cleverly resolved, though.
Monday, May 20, 2019
Book Review: Under the Knife
Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
Arnold van de Laar
Medicine
Even allowing that Under the Knife is a translation, and even allowing that it's really a collection of essays, this is a book that's unskillfully written and composed. Information is repeated. Chapters come in random order. The prose style is serviceable, no more.
Most irritatingly, the individual chapters themselves are disorganized. The chapter on anesthesia veers off, on the next-to-last-page, into Ignaz Semmelweis The transitioning sentence: "Anaesthesia was a revolution in surgery; the next step was the introduction of hygiene." This diversion lasts for precisely one long paragraph before returning, with no explanation or connection, to chlofoform.
Or take the discussion of vascular surgery, which includes this:
What? Where did Billroth come into this? What does his distaste for varicose vein surgery in general have to do with the topic of this paragraph, which is the crossectomy? Nor does Billroth resurface later in the chapter; the next paragraph is about the successor procedure.
These solecisms (and many more) give Under the Knife a random, disconnected quality. You never quite know where a chapter is going, regardless of its title or opening paragraph. The anecdotes about the titular operations are quite interesting, in fact, but van de Laar never figures out how to follow up on them. Look, people, if you're going to write nonfiction, you need to understand that there are rules for doing it--just as there are rules in fiction--and that you violate them at your peril.
Good biomedical essayists include Lewis Thomas (The Lives of a Cell) and, more tangentially, Loren Eisley and Stephen Jay Gould. For one excellent take on how to write nonfiction well, see Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd's Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction.
Arnold van de Laar
Medicine
Even allowing that Under the Knife is a translation, and even allowing that it's really a collection of essays, this is a book that's unskillfully written and composed. Information is repeated. Chapters come in random order. The prose style is serviceable, no more.
Most irritatingly, the individual chapters themselves are disorganized. The chapter on anesthesia veers off, on the next-to-last-page, into Ignaz Semmelweis The transitioning sentence: "Anaesthesia was a revolution in surgery; the next step was the introduction of hygiene." This diversion lasts for precisely one long paragraph before returning, with no explanation or connection, to chlofoform.
Or take the discussion of vascular surgery, which includes this:
In the twentieth century, the crossectomy was combined with "stripping", a method by which the GSV can be removed subcutaneously completely and in one go. This was--and remained until around 2005--the standard procedure for treating varicose veins, the whole operation taking no more than fifteen minutes per leg. Theodor Billroth, one of the greatest names in the whole history of surgery, was vehemently opposed to varicose vein operations, without bothering to explain why.
What? Where did Billroth come into this? What does his distaste for varicose vein surgery in general have to do with the topic of this paragraph, which is the crossectomy? Nor does Billroth resurface later in the chapter; the next paragraph is about the successor procedure.
These solecisms (and many more) give Under the Knife a random, disconnected quality. You never quite know where a chapter is going, regardless of its title or opening paragraph. The anecdotes about the titular operations are quite interesting, in fact, but van de Laar never figures out how to follow up on them. Look, people, if you're going to write nonfiction, you need to understand that there are rules for doing it--just as there are rules in fiction--and that you violate them at your peril.
Good biomedical essayists include Lewis Thomas (The Lives of a Cell) and, more tangentially, Loren Eisley and Stephen Jay Gould. For one excellent take on how to write nonfiction well, see Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd's Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Book Review: The Devil's Dinner
The Devil's Dinner: A Gastronomic and Cultural History of Chili Peppers
Stuart Walton
History, food
What irritated me most about The Devil's Dinner was the organization. The chapters are arranged without any real narrative flow, information is sometimes repeated, and the whole thing comes off as something of a muddle. Nor did I think that the research that went into the book was especially deep or complete; Walton seems to have relied heavily on a small number of interviews and a lot of second-hand reportage.
That said, there's some interesting stuff in here. The "burning" sensation of chili, for example, really does activate some of the same neural pathways as actual burning. Also, there's a real thing out there called Male Idiot Theory, which has been used to explain chili-eating contests. I'll buy it.
Rather surprisingly, there's no recipe section.
Overall verdict: mildly interesting. But with a title and topic like this, "mild" shouldn't be the descriptor! I'd pay good money to see John McPhee do for the chili pepper what he did for Oranges, for example.
Stuart Walton
History, food
What irritated me most about The Devil's Dinner was the organization. The chapters are arranged without any real narrative flow, information is sometimes repeated, and the whole thing comes off as something of a muddle. Nor did I think that the research that went into the book was especially deep or complete; Walton seems to have relied heavily on a small number of interviews and a lot of second-hand reportage.
That said, there's some interesting stuff in here. The "burning" sensation of chili, for example, really does activate some of the same neural pathways as actual burning. Also, there's a real thing out there called Male Idiot Theory, which has been used to explain chili-eating contests. I'll buy it.
Rather surprisingly, there's no recipe section.
Overall verdict: mildly interesting. But with a title and topic like this, "mild" shouldn't be the descriptor! I'd pay good money to see John McPhee do for the chili pepper what he did for Oranges, for example.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Book Review: Early Riser
Early Riser
Jasper Fforde
Science fiction
Early Riser is totally unlike anything else, including other books by Jasper Fforde, in such a way that it could only have been written by Jasper Fforde. There's what we might dub a Ffordean Ffamily Resemblance to the author's other books, in that Early Riser is (a) deeply strange, (b) wildly creative, (c) funny, and (d) intriguing. But its particular strangenesses are not the strangenesses of other Ffordiana, except in the broadest sense.
More precisely, Fforde's specialty is in creating worlds that mirror ours in some way, but veer wildly off-kilter in others. (I refer the interested reader to his "Nursery Crimes" series, for example; The Big Over Easy is an--ahem--hard-boiled mystery about who killed Humpty Dumpty.) In Early Riser, the difference is that winters are killingly harsh and that, in consequence, humans hibernate. Around this premise Fforde builds up a decidedly peculiar yet compelling milieu. I won't try to describe it, except to note that it has zombies, English aristocrats gone feral (but of course in a very civilized fashion, dear chap), and monsters that may not exist.
Granted, it doesn't really make much sense. Those who are looking for a consistent picture of what the world might actually be like will be disappointed; various brands, signifiers, history, and features of our own world appear largely unchanged. And the ultimate plot--a sort of thriller--is not, once it's been divested of its more outré trappings, particularly hard to anticipate. To indulge in a very very slight spoiler by way of example, the Sinister Corporate Oligarchy [highlight to reveal] is something of a Fforde standby.
I didn't think this was Fforde's very best work, but I still liked it a lot. Whether you, Dear Reader, will like it, I can hardly speculate. If you like Jasper Fforde, you're on solid ground. If you've never tried him, there are worse places to start; Early Riser is a standalone. Just don't blame me if you end up sitting there, dazed, trying to glue your brain back together.
Jasper Fforde
Science fiction
Early Riser is totally unlike anything else, including other books by Jasper Fforde, in such a way that it could only have been written by Jasper Fforde. There's what we might dub a Ffordean Ffamily Resemblance to the author's other books, in that Early Riser is (a) deeply strange, (b) wildly creative, (c) funny, and (d) intriguing. But its particular strangenesses are not the strangenesses of other Ffordiana, except in the broadest sense.
More precisely, Fforde's specialty is in creating worlds that mirror ours in some way, but veer wildly off-kilter in others. (I refer the interested reader to his "Nursery Crimes" series, for example; The Big Over Easy is an--ahem--hard-boiled mystery about who killed Humpty Dumpty.) In Early Riser, the difference is that winters are killingly harsh and that, in consequence, humans hibernate. Around this premise Fforde builds up a decidedly peculiar yet compelling milieu. I won't try to describe it, except to note that it has zombies, English aristocrats gone feral (but of course in a very civilized fashion, dear chap), and monsters that may not exist.
Granted, it doesn't really make much sense. Those who are looking for a consistent picture of what the world might actually be like will be disappointed; various brands, signifiers, history, and features of our own world appear largely unchanged. And the ultimate plot--a sort of thriller--is not, once it's been divested of its more outré trappings, particularly hard to anticipate. To indulge in a very very slight spoiler by way of example, the Sinister Corporate Oligarchy [highlight to reveal] is something of a Fforde standby.
I didn't think this was Fforde's very best work, but I still liked it a lot. Whether you, Dear Reader, will like it, I can hardly speculate. If you like Jasper Fforde, you're on solid ground. If you've never tried him, there are worse places to start; Early Riser is a standalone. Just don't blame me if you end up sitting there, dazed, trying to glue your brain back together.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Book Review: Finder
Finder
Suzanne Palmer
Science fiction
Look, I can't even pretend to be objective about this one. Suzanne is a friend of mine. Moreover, I had the privilege of reading and commenting on an earlier draft of Finder. So I'll just say that this is a fun, fast-paced, engaging space opera with:
Suzanne Palmer
Science fiction
Look, I can't even pretend to be objective about this one. Suzanne is a friend of mine. Moreover, I had the privilege of reading and commenting on an earlier draft of Finder. So I'll just say that this is a fun, fast-paced, engaging space opera with:
- A cool setting
- Excellent worldbuilding
- Great, fast pacing
- Space War!
- An appealing reluctant-hero protagonist
- An eminently hateable villain
- Aliens
- Really weird aliens
- Offbeat humor (we are talking, after all, about the author of the short story "Zombie Cabana Boy")
- Meatcubes
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