Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours that Ended the Cold War

This book takes an historical event and puts it in context, recounts the event as an eyewitness, and presents its historical significance.

For a summit meeting that is of common knowledge, this book is surprisingly interesting.

While it presents Reagan in a very favorable light it avoids a fawning tone. The author has very good credentials and a very engaging manner.

The book makes a good case for the subtitle.

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah by Captain Sir Richard F. Burton

This voyage in 1852 was extremely dangerous. It was only possible because of Burton's astonishing language ability and his cultural understanding. The account is extremely detailed, at times tedious; but there are parts of extreme interest. The whole account is under the constant tension of the possibility of his discovery. Violence is always just an insult away, robbery or assault if one is momentarily relaxed. And always the heat, the implacable unbearable heat. And water is life and thirst is a death.

9 Algorithms that Changed the Future by John MacCormick

This book is written at exactly the right level. It seems to explain so that it is understandable but comprehensive and reliable.

The discussion of error correcting was interesting. Data compression and databases were also quite clearly presented.

I enjoyed this book.

Faraday Maxwell and the Electric Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics by Nancy Forbes

This is a well-written and engaging history based on the premise that Faraday, a self-taught experimentalist, had seminal insights that were noticed by a similarly brilliant mathematical genius and physicist. The idea of electromagnetic fields was born and changed the world. In the course of the book one grows to appreciate these two men at a deeper level than their ideas. The book looks at their character and there is grace at work there.

The Martian by Andy Weir

An astronaut on a Mars landing is abandoned when the mission is aborted and he is thought to be dead. The result is a hi-tech Robinson Crusoe in a vacuum.

The story is full of twists and turns and is very exciting and actually plausible. A fun read.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

(read aloud)

A widower bookstore owner, buried in grief and self-absorbed, has a sort of rebirth when a baby is left at his store. This is a story full of warmth and redemption and surprise. It is beautiful and full of unexpected love and expected friendships. Very much worth reading.

American Chestnut by Susan Freinkel

The subtitle gives a good summary: "The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree." This is an interesting if unfinished story. Since the tree is not extinct there is hope. It was revealing that in our current state of science we are so much at the mercy of plant pathogens. I had to remind myself that such is certainly also true of human pathogens!

The book is slightly aimless and somewhat repetitious. There are only so many ways to say that a tree is wonderful and its loss is regrettable.

Still, the book is hopeful without denying the difficulty of the task, to restore a tree that once spread throughout the eastern forests of the United States.