Mother Earth, Motherboard by Neal Stephenson

This 66-page article from Wired Magazine is the best nerd writing I've read since Tracy Kidder and "Soul of a New Machine." More than you ever wanted to know about undersea communication cables written in an irreverent style with all kinds of literary and historical allusions. With chapter previews like Gulliver's Travels and Pilgrim's Progress and Robert Louis Stevenson and Robinson Crusoe. I found the wandering style very entertaining and the author never fails to come back to the point. Read it at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson

This is a delightful collection of travel stories. At first I was a somewhat disinterested reader. Then I realized that I was looking for action; when I recognized the magic of his descriptions and that this was his purpose and zeal, I began to read in a different light. He describes topography, local two-bit kings, languages and customs. Naturally Eurocentric, he avoids chauvinism by deep interest, thinly veiled compassion, and a more deeply veiled almost encrypted faith. Unspoken but obvious, his honesty and good will bonded him to those he met. He is somewhat critical of missionaries but in awe of them as well. His description of the Hawaiian leper colony is moving and dramatic. The more I read, the more entranced I became with the South Seas. Stevenson is weaving the web that trapped him.

The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford

About the NSA, interesting in parts, notably the still-secret parts seem to continue to be a problem now. Cryptography has a fascinating history. Breaking codes now seems impossible - or is it? Only the NSA knows!

Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell

Poor writing, obsessed with guns, multi-threaded plot frayed in places, caricature instead of character ("relaxed fit jeans," for example). So much poorer than the other Scarpetta books one wonders if it was ghost written.

Human Universals by Donald E. Brown

A brief note on a book basically skimmed. Good chapters on the witting or unwitting wrong conclusions of Margaret Meade in Samoa which ever after made cultural relativism a sociological dogma.

The book's scathing critique of cultural relativism is welcome but its consequent embracing of evolutionary explanation of societal universals is not.

God, Jews, History by Max Dimont

This is a good book in the sense that it covers the scope of the world history of the Jews. It is fairly evenhanded and fair, with due amazement at the survival of the Jews as a distinct people. His discussion of Pharisees and Sadducees and Essenes is very different than my understanding and clouded by an indecipherable or at least confusing use of "liberal" and "conservative."

Naturally his view of Jesus is different than mine and seems fair on the surface but to me is really too conveniently dismissive of every really crucial fact and too accepting of the usual "great teacher preaching peace" etc.

The sections on the Talmud were very good. Most interesting were the sections on the flourishing of Jews during the Mohammedan reign in the middle ages. He is very graphic in describing the middle ages as feudalism which enslaved everyone, nobles and serfs alike, except the Jews, who were the early middle class.

His section on antisemitism is balanced; his comments on Arab-Jewish relations seem remarkably naive.

Blind Man's Bluff by Drew Sontag

This is a fascinating glimpse into the secret use of the silent service, submarine spying during the cold war. Shadowing Russian subs, brazenly going into enemy harbors, tapping undersea cables. The technology race was sometimes hampered by leaks and espionage and traitors. It is a harrowing story and probably just the tip of the iceberg.