Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else Jordan Ellenburg
A professor of math explores how geometry can help us understand the world, diving into a variety of topics including chess, gerrymandering, and (of course) pandemics.
Written for a general audience, but still throws in a lot of challenging stuff - eigenvectors, Dirilichet’s theroem, et cetera. I love this stuff, and I had to reread some parts.
Recommended. But take it slowly
Just started Dream Girl by Laura Lippman. Recommended by NPR as one of the best mysteries of 2021.
I have no idea. I’ve blocked most of that book from my memory. I don’t recommend reading it unless you need to atone for a horrible sin like killing someone or writing in pen in a library book or something.
Finished Chessmen of Mars on audio. Started Stephen King’s Later.
I’ve remarked in the past on King being inspired by prior works of fiction. Now he’s not even hiding it – he makes the comparison in the very beginning to his character’s situation and the one in The Sixth Sense. I don’t mind – as with Elevation (obviously inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Truth about Pyecraft,) which I audio-read not long ago, King goes off in a completely different direction.
I’m interested to hear if you agree with NPR. I attempted to read another book by that author that had received several awards (What the Dead Know), and disliked it enough to abandon it partway through. But I’ve also noticed that my taste in books differs from many people’s, so maybe my not liking it was just me being weird.
I’ll share my opinion, FWIW, after I finish the book. Right now I’m about 15% into it and I like it thus far.
Finished Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin, which was excellent.
Started Poet Warrior: A Memoir, by Joy Harjo.
I read it in November, posted briefly about it here. Liked it a lot. I’ll also be curious about what you think.
I liked this one very much too. Not an easy book I agree. But fascinating. Read it in December but I don’t think I posted about it here.
Just found Cruelly Yours by Cassandra Peterson at the library. What a life! Making out with Jimi Hendrix and Seigfried and being a 14 year old go go dancer ( and still a virgin) she goes on to be a showgirl and. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
Finished Howard Carter’s book. Wonderful to read the account from the man himself which gives a great enthusiastic telling of the story of his discovery. 99 years have passed from this book being published to me reading it. From a technical analysis detailing how scientifically and logistically they managed to accomplish this expedition it is a fascinating insight because what they had was primitive to all the technology we have at our disposal today. Carter’s thoughts on the future possibilities are also interesting because we have almost a century’s worth of work to measure up to his writings. Recommend it to anyone who is interested.
I love that book, and I don’t read abridged editions. If the author felt it important to include, I will read every word written.
Finished In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson. Focuses on the first year of the four-year tenure of FDR’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany, mild-mannered Chicago college professor William Dodd. Culminates in the Night of the Long Knives on June 30, 1934, which cemented Hitler’s grip on power. Dodd took with him to Berlin his wife and two adult children, Bill Jr and Martha. Martha was something of a live wire. At the time in the process of a divorce from a secret marriage with a New York banker, she had had affairs stateside with Carl Sandburg – who was an honorary pallbearer at Dodd’s funeral in 1940 – and probably Thornton Wilder. In Berlin, Martha began collecting lovers across the city from among Berlin’s international, cultural and even Nazi elite. One of them was Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s personal piano player, a Harvard grad who had once played piano in the White House. In Hitler’s early days, Putzi had the naive notion that if Hitler could just fall in love with a woman, it might soften him somewhat, and he thought Martha might just do the trick. But nothing came from an initial meeting between the two. Martha was at first attracted to the new Germany and the Nazi movement, what with the strong young Germans emanating a newfound pride, but the violence she soon witnessed turned her off. Another of Martha’s lovers was a Soviet embassy official, an agent of the NKVD – precursor of the KGB – who recruited her to become a Soviet spy. Later in life Martha married a wealthy New York bon vivant and in turn recruited him as a Soviet spy, him thinking it would be great fun. The intelligence they passed on pretty much consisted of high-society gossip – the Rosenbergs they were not. Under pressure from the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, they left the US, settling in Prague and pursuing a decidedly uncommunistic lifestyle with mansions and servants and where Martha eventually died at the ripe old age of 81. But back in the 1930s, her father recognized early on the dangers posed by the Hitler regime, although his sentiments flew in the face of the accepted wisdom that Hitler’s government could not possibly last, would come crashing down any day now. Plus Dodd himself – not wealthy, not a Harvard grad – was looked down on by the State Department elite, garnering a reputation as the Cassandra of American diplomats. After leaving Germany in 1937, he spent the remaining 2-1/2 years of his life crisscrossing the US, lecturing on what he saw as the coming storm. Very good. My second Larson after The Devil in the White City. I believe I’m going to seek out more.
Meanwhile, I’ve started Pronto, by Elmore Leonard.
A great Raylan Givens tale!
Finished Poet Warrior: A Memoir , by Joy Harjo. Powerful and sad.
Now I’m reading The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett.
Finished The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents , a Discworld novel for younger readers by Terry Pratchett. It was excellent.
Now I’m reading The Class: A Life-Changing Teacher, His World-Changing Kids, and the Most Inventive Classroom in America, by Heather Won Tesoriero.
His book on the Lusitania is very good as well.