She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer

I didn't read every page because some of the genetics is not new to me. However, in general, this is the best general public presentation of genetics I have ever seen. The writing is excellent, the science is state of the art, and some of the more recent findings on mosaics and CRISPR are amazing and artfully presented. I strongly recommend this book.

Stuff Matters by Mark Miedownik

A fact-filled, fascinating book about everyday man-made materials that have drastically altered our lives. Ten different materials, each so well presented it is hard to pick a favorite. Steel (headlining a discussion of metals), paper, concrete, glass, plastic, porcelain, grapheme and diamond. There was something I didn't know in every paragraph.

The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex by Harold J. Morowitz

From the Big Bang to the emergence of spirituality, 28 steps of directed evolution directed by "God" and an emergent principle operating through a kind of quasi-Darwinian mechanism. Interesting and well written and concise to a fault. Very speculative and brave for a biologist of repute. Much better than I expected.

The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference by Linda Kaplan Thayer and Robin Koval

By the advertising geniuses that brought us the AFLAC duck. Really a collection of stories about how small things we do can reap big dividends. Not profound or novel, but the stories are quite good.

The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius

Though this is a work of fiction, I am almost sure that the themes and even the activities depicted are taking place at this time. The promise and the dangers of quantum computing represent the "Manhattan Project" of this generation. The story is engaging though typical of the genre.

Death and Judgment by Donna Leon

(read aloud)

Brunetti loves Venice; he in a sense is Venice. But the corruption, the bureaucracy, the slow decay, all trouble him. This episode deals with trafficking and is disturbing and raw. Brunetti, usually calm, is so upset by these criminals that he reveals both anger and sorrow. We saw of the video of this book, which was quite different but disturbing as well. I look forward to more Donna Leon.

Boundless by Bryan Bishop

A trip around the world to see if following Jesus can be done within the culture of other religions. For example, can one follow Jesus and remain a Muslim? As far as Islam is a culture and lifestyle and perhaps in some cases, propositionally relatively lax in some areas of observance and perhaps open to Jesus as being mentioned favorably in the Koran, one can remain in the Muslim culture yet follow Jesus as the ground of truth and righteousness and devotion and salvation.

Other examples in other cultures are given, and a chapter about the legitimacy also of "western" culture as a valid culture of Jesus-following (with also attendant syncretistic danger) is well done. Mostly the book raises questions and doesn't give firm answers. The key is to follow Jesus, where he leads and the Holy Spirit sheds light.

The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick

A fairly transparent sci-fi retelling of the incarnation with a futuristic amalgam of ancient sources, myth, and multiverse elements. Parts are fascinating and disarming, others beyond the comprehension of this reader. A book that could be re-read and enjoyed again. Underneath the cleverness a God beyond description lurks.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

(read aloud)

This is a fascinating, complex book, consisting of an account by a publisher of mysteries about the murder of an author of a mystery novel. The novel is almost completely contained in the text, and there are complicated parallels between the mystery novel, the mystery author's mysterious murder, and the mystery publisher's mysterious involvement in it all. Add a bunch of puzzles and anagrams and you have a recipe for days of pleasant intrigue. The writing is delightful and the changes of voice in the various parts quite remarkable. Will give Horowitz another look.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This reading about someone playing a video game. So why did I read the whole book? I don't know.

Update: We watched the movie and it was actually enjoyable. The visual modality helped to understand what was happening.

Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil

Somewhat disappointing. Very good on the injustices of data science applied to groups of people, with unintended (?) consequences. Then mostly political. Can't math use feedback to address these injustices algorithmically?

Lost Connection by Johann Hari

A book about the cause of depression. He contends that, because the DSM has a "grief exception," they have admitted that life circumstance can cause symptoms matching depression. He makes a good case that depression can be caused by life circumstances, that depression, anxiety, and grief may be manifestations of one process, and that modern life is driving an increase in depression. He states that SSRI research was duplicitous and misleading.

His main point is that depression is caused by disconnection, and he writes about disconnection from meaningful work, loneliness, sharing contacts and values, intrinsic values vs. extrinsic values, materialism and separation from nature, junk values analogous to junk food, and envy.

Depression is caused by biological, psychological, and social factors. He gives examples of healing communities. The last part of the book was less interesting to me, dealing with meditation, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and social activism.

Identical by Scott Turow

An interesting murder mystery involving identical twins and uncertain paternity and Greek-American culture. Do identical twins have the same DNA and the same fingerprints? Now the answer is no.

*Spoiler alert*
The story, it turns out, is loosely based on the myth of the Gemini, one immortal and one mortal, who, when one was dying, asked to share mortality and each spent half the time in Hades and half on Mount Olympus.

Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan

This book is x-rated as far as I am concerned, but it has an interesting plot and the protagonist is a devoted Christian, which would seem to me to be unusual in a book of this genre.

Strangers on a Bridge by James Donovan

(read aloud)

This is the book on which the Tom Hanks movie Bridge of Spies is based. The book and the movie are quite in agreement. Donovan is an excellent writer and it is a very good story. Donovan is really a remarkable person, and while he is not self-promoting, his position, prominence, and ability are on every page.

Suspicion and Faith by Merold Westphal

Suggested by my pastor when I asked about Nietzsche. The premise is that the atheistic philosophers Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, while criticizing Christianity, make some observations we would do well to listen to. If we can hold back from trying to refute their basic philosophy, which Westphal feels is possible, we can listen and learn.

The hermeneutics of suspicion, "the attempt to expose self-deception, in hiding our actual motives from ourselves," and not to notice "how much our behavior and our beliefs are shaped by values we disown." It is not skepticism, which deals with evidence of propositions believed, but suspicion as to the duplicity of persons.

Freud views religion as false and as a delusion and a way to seek consolation, life being too hard for us. Dreams are wish-fulfillment.

To Marx, religion is the opiate of the people, anesthetizing them so that they can ignore the plight of the oppressed.

Nietzsche sees religion as a will to power, a way to make one big and others small.

Westphal goes deeply into the writings of each one and shows how on the mark much of this criticism is.

Especially interesting are the later chapters where he shows Jesus making the same case against the Pharisees and us. A very good book.

Surprised by Scripture by N. T. Wright

Again Wright influences me and to some extent wins me over to his views. He wants to extirpate my latent epicureanism, which I was unaware of having. He defines epicureanism and shows how it was a part of the Enlightenment and the American founders. His case for this seems sound and despite his latent anti-americanism explains a lot. The book deals with application of scripture.

He deals with:
1) the historicity of Adam
2) science, scientism, and the resurrection
3) the ordination of women
4) eschatology and ecology
5) the problem of evil
6) idolatry
7) the Gospel in the public square
8) engaging the culture
9) art

These all are worth referring to. A very good book, almost as good as Surprised by Hope, which is high praise. A different book, however.

The Great Good Thing by Andrew Klavan

About a secular Jew who finds Christ or is found by Christ. Very well written, honest and introspective. Full of grace and insight.

Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Not read in entirety, although it is a very good book. I note here that the section on gender is quite adamant that it is biologically determined, not a social construct, and gives good evidence for that position. Section on epigenetics is a useful primer, though this is an "evolving" area of inquiry.

Artemis by Andy Weir

Not as good as The Martian but will make a fun movie. Fun characters, but the heroine is a little too flawed for my taste. Good integration of the science, though some may be bored by that.

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley

(read aloud - review written for the March 2018 meeting of Cozmic Writers II)

Alan Bradley was writing about an English family and was describing the front entrance of their imposing estate mansion. He happened to notice a girl he thought to be about 11, sitting on a low wall next to the driveway. When I say noticed I am of course talking about his imagining, but it is an "imagining into being," the creation of someone real. And he was so taken by her he started over and wrote about her as the central figure of his novels.

Meet Flavia de Luce, rhymes with Batavia, who lives at Buckshaw, an estate outside a small English village with her widower father and her two older sisters. And she is real. Because if she is not real, how can I know her too? And I do know her, or think I do.

It is impossible to tell where Alan Bradley's genius ends and Flavia's begins. After 8 books, we are still surprised at her wit, wisdom and precocity, but she is ever and always the young girl.

These are murder mysteries and Flavia is an amateur sleuth. She is unperturbed by dead bodies and well-versed in chemistry, particularly poisons. But her secret weapon is that as a young girl, she is socially invisible, and with her mother deceased and her grieving father psychologically absent, she and her trusty bike Gladys have the run of the countryside.

We see the world through her eyes as she describes her thoughts and exploits. But reading between the lines we see that many of the adults are looking after her in a way that she is perhaps only partly aware of. And though her father loves her deeply, we can see that Flavia reminds him so much of his wife it is almost unbearable. Her mother was a wealthy heiress who was an adventurer, airplane pilot, and explorer, a force of nature. She went missing on an adventure years before and her body was only discovered in the sixth book. Her place in the novels is as a looming presence or more precisely an absence. Her mother's Rolls Royce is sitting in the garage untouched and covered with dust, a symbol of past opulence and present grief. Buckshaw is slowly decaying. Flavia's world is a contradiction. On one hand the joy of a young girl making sense of her world and decorating it with exciting murder investigations and chemistry experiments. And on the other hand a blanket of deep sorrow. Her father and his valet were both severely traumatized in the war and have an unshakeable bond of shared suffering. This valet, Dogger (once a military physician), is Flavia's most dependable support but at times it seems she is taking care of him and her father as well of only by giving them a reason to carry on.

Flavia notices everything. She reads science books and has made a chemistry lab in her quarters in an abandoned wing of the mansion. She learns culture from her older sisters who are interested in music and literature, also escaping into worlds of their own as their father's situation is collapsing.

But Flavia is irrepressible, her mother reborn, life is an adventure. Every person is a possible suspect, or witness, or clue, or confidant. So we follow her around Buckshaw, around the village of Bishop's Lacey, visiting the Vicar, running into the Inspector and his wife, meeting her imposing Aunt Felicity at the railway station, and predictably, finding dead bodies, sometimes in the first chapter. The authorities arrive and do their job but it is Flavia who finds some telltale clue, spirits it up to her lab and using her bunsen burner and microscope finds some anomaly that she offhandedly leaks to Inspector Hewitt and the case is solved with none but us insiders the wiser.

So I say this to you Flavia, don't grow up. We need you. You delight in the world. You see people in their unguarded moments. Reading about poisons may have given you a feeling of power. But your real power is giving joy to your readers. I'm glad Alan Bradley saw you sitting by the side of the lane. Keep coming to visit.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Twenty historical lessons about authoritarian regimes and how they start. Good lessons, but his application to today is completely opposite to mine. It is thinly veiled opposition to our current president and as such curiously dated. Will he issue a new edition every 4-8 years? One of us is reading fake news and I think it is Mr. Snyder!

Slow Medicine by Victoria Sweet

Very good and I enjoyed it a lot, but mostly the same as God's Hotel.

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

(read aloud)

Story of law school debt, immigration, for-profit law schools. A fun read but not Grisham's best.

Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger

Inside the decisions and plans with the dangers and uncertainties exposed. The whole Apollo effort was remarkable. It doesn't seem we have the will or social cohesion to do something like this now.

Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner

Everything about Uranium and the history of its mining and use.

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton

(read aloud)

Kinsey is again pursuer and pursued. Her investigation is slow to unfold and the stalker thread is harrowing, but not well-integrated into the plot. Overall we enjoyed it. We finished it on the day Sue Grafton died, so we were surprised and saddened. According to her daughter, "the alphabet will end at Y."

On the Incarnation by St. Athanadius - forward by C. S. Lewis

The forward is delightful and states that reading from other periods is a very beneficial matter and can be a corrective as different eras have different blind spots. He says reading future works would also be helpful but alas that option is not available to us!

On the Incarnation is a spiritual tour de force with a devotional thrust. He speaks of the outstretched arms of our Saviour on the Cross. Of his humiliation, of his public suffering. Of his perfection. His Glory. An appendix letter about the Psalms is valuable.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

The story of Knight and Nike. Steeped in Oregon and Oregon track lore, a story of a dream of a shoe business, and slowly but finally, a smashing success over big obstacles. As you might expect, he found some talented collaborators, some very unlikely. Well-written by Knight himself. Bowerman, Prefontaine, Jordan, Tiger, Agassi, all have a place, especially Bowerman. He called his father on the phone almost every evening.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

This is quite an unusual book. The author is a very accomplished botanist. She is a very good writer. She has bipolar disorder. Chapters about plants are interspersed with her account of her career, written in an interesting sketchlike manner. Her entire career has been working with the same assistant, Bill, with whom she has an extremely close, quirky relationship. She marries and has a son and writes it all in a way that engages the reader.

Cool Tools by Kevin Kelly

Whole Earth catalog reborn, wonderful collection of interesting tools and books and maps and all things technical and innovative.

Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds by Greg Milner

A fascinating tale of the origins of GPS, how it developed, and how it is transforming life. As the only global "utility," it is at the same time curiously vulnerable and quite robust. It seems there is now no going back. What could go wrong? There are some backups being made, but dependence on GPS is becoming very deep. Written at just the right level of technical detail for my taste.

Last Night in the OR by Bud Shaw, M.D.

I thought this was going to be the usual surgical ego trip book seen so often, and the early chapters about the perils and rigors of surgical training seemed headed that way, but the rest of the book was a pleasant surprise. Shaw's accomplishments were if anything understated and he tells story after touching story of mortality, loss, short-lived victories, and self-doubt. His own lymphoma, his sister's illness, his father's Alzheimers, his divorces, tell a human story. His writing is good and he is transparent to an astonishing degree. His life is opened like an autopsy to speak for itself.

American Kingpin by Nick Bilton

This book was very well-written. It is the story of the Silk Road founder; technology in the hands of an amoral young man who begins the perfect crime and of course makes mistakes and is caught. Using encryption, Tor, and bitcoin he makes a website where anything can be bought and sold anonymously. The protagonist is thoroughly unlikeable, his capture is inevitable, so the only compelling thing about the book is the good writing. I look forward to books by this author about people worth his talent.

The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe

(read aloud)

This is a long autobiography written in an old style. It is very self-referential of course, and quite uneven and episodic. It is often a series of stories, some so amazing as to tempt disbelief. However I think it is all true, and certainly the medical parts seem solidly believable. Those reservations aside, this is an amazing book about an amazing man who lived at a time of ferment and turmoil. He lived at the center of civilization of his time, in Paris and Rome. He associated with the giants of his time, Pasteur, Charcot, and others. He was doctor to royalty and the very rich, but had a special heart, even a love, for the poor, the simple, the peasant. Nothing surpassed his love for animals. He worked bravely through rabies attacks, earthquakes and cholera epidemics; describing himself as terrified he belied this by his obvious bravery and unrelenting efforts to help the most hopeless situations imaginable. He was proud of his unbelief but often his actions spoke more of a deep faith.

He had perhaps what we would call "burnout" and moved to Anacapri and built a mansion, lived with simple people he loved and understood, and built a bird sanctuary and had his own menagerie at his home.

His views of medicine and his closing chapters about the approach of his own death are outstanding.

This is a long book, some parts are better than others but the willing reader who can understand the "romantic" writing style will be greatly rewarded in the reading.

Deliverance to the Captives by Karl Barth

Loaned to me by my pastor when I asked about Barth. As he said, this collection of sermons shows his heart more than his technical theology. Most of the sermons were delivered to services in a prison, hence the title. The sermons are wonderful, thoughtful and moving. He speaks methodically about a brief text and exhorts the listener to believe the good news. Some major emphases point to his central thoughts. Everything is centered in Christ and what he has done for us. This is the Word of God. Apart from Christ we cannot know or understand or receive God. In Christ we can be saved from our awful state. This is given to everyone without cost, without exception.