The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

A thoroughly delightful and wise book about a female detective "PI" in Botswana. Full of culture and love of Africa. It is a lot of fun and emotionally fulfilling. Highly recommended.

Out of My Life and Thought by Albert Schweitzer

This is a short autobiography that is also a brief review of his major ideas. It is interesting about his view of Jesus as a mistaken figure who thought he would be the Messiah and was mistaken. He sees Christianity as an ethical system and later espouses "reverence for life" as a unifying principle linking the great faiths. His upbringing, his obvious brilliance, his desire to follow Jesus and renounce his fame made him more famous. It is interesting how his rejection of the Gospel of John to me seems to have determined his intellectual "fate." He was a man of astonishing intellect, great stamina and courage. His briefly-mentioned encounters with orthodox believers are described with warmth but condescension. After deconstructing the Gospels and being their arbiter, there was no turning back!

The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs

This is a fun book about a journalist who read the Encyclopedia Britannica cover to cover. It is surprisingly interesting and quite funny. Many interesting facts and trivia.

Embryo Factory by Rev. Richard A. Humphrey and Dr. Loren J. Humphrey

An interesting story by my former pastor. Colorful southern dialect but the orthography can mislead as the dialect can be engaging but if read wrong can be jarring. The ethical issues are brought forward, I enjoyed the prolife stand but perhaps another reader would see it differently. A good tale with good characters but some better editing would have helped.

Kepler's Conjecture by George Szpiro

This book explores in depth the packing problem of spheres, which appears so simple and yet has only recently been solved. Because it begins with an easily-understood problem and with good writing progresses from there, it can go deep and yet keep interest. It is historical, witty, and has fairly difficult math kept to the appendix.

The Gutenberg Revolution by John Man

A nice little book in an old font about the birth of printing, its personalities, and its history and effects. It makes many interesting points. The religious atmosphere is interesting. Islam didn't adopt printing, Greek was first printed in Italy. Printing made Luther's ascendancy possible; he was the first massive best-seller. The Gutenberg Bible is still a model of beauty and perfection. Gutenberg was supplanted at his moment (or rather just before) of greatest triumph.

The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky by David Berlinski

An engaging history of astrology and its relation to astronomy and science. Berlinski applies his eloquence and erudition. Taking no rhetorical prisoners, he shows how ideas change how mathematics rules and how little progress we have made in understanding causation and action at a distance. He forces us to face the possibility that our view of reality may to future scientists look like astrology or at least like Ptolemy.