[salem]

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.

I've not seen the movie 'The Golden Compass' or the 'His Dark Materials' tv series yet, but I think I will now.

[rtpoe]

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs by Ina Park MD, MS.

The subtitle suggests that this book is going to get into the biology of STDs - the life of the microbes, the problems they create, etc. It doesn't. Without being either puritanical or lewd, Dr. Park (her first name rhymes with 'vagina' - her formulation, not mine), basically recounts tales from her time in the trenches as a specialist in the identification and treatment of STDs, and some of the latest work in their treatment and prevention. There's stuff on the development and practice of contact tracing, the "microbiome" of the vagina, the time Dr. Park dressed up in a giant condom....

It's done with a light and humorous touch, because, as Dr. Park firmly believes, we shouldn't be afraid of sex - or the (treatable) complications.

[TheZookie007]

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs by Ina Park MD, MS.

The subtitle suggests that this book is going to get into the biology of STDs - the life of the microbes, the problems they create, etc. It doesn't. Without being either puritanical or lewd, Dr. Park (her first name rhymes with 'vagina' - her formulation, not mine), basically recounts tales from her time in the trenches as a specialist in the identification and treatment of STDs, and some of the latest work in their treatment and prevention. There's stuff on the development and practice of contact tracing, the "microbiome" of the vagina, the time Dr. Park dressed up in a giant condom....

It's done with a light and humorous touch, because, as Dr. Park firmly believes, we shouldn't be afraid of sex - or the (treatable) complications.

That sounds like a very interesting book. We all could do with some proper sex education, always good to learn!

[rtpoe]

Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana

The greatest world leader you've never heard of; Arana turns Simon Bolivar's life story into the epic that he deserves - without being either hagiographic or dismissive of his achievements. Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia all count him as their founder.

There really needs to be a movie about him.

[TheZookie007]

Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana

The greatest world leader you've never heard of; Arana turns Simon Bolivar's life story into the epic that he deserves - without being either hagiographic or dismissive of his achievements. Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia all count him as their founder.

Panama too. And even Cuba owes a debt of gratitude to him.

Another little-remembered fact: After the founding of the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813, he led forces into Bogotá, Colombia to liberate the city in 1814. His intent was to march into Cartagena, gather more forces and free Santa Marta from Spanish rule, but was unsuccessful. A year later he retreated to Jamaica, survived a number of assassination attempts, and then later retreated to Haiti. He sought for and received vital material support from the president of the recently-independent southern republic of Haiti, Alexandre Pétion. Pétion had one condition: that Bolívar pledge to end chattel slavery in every country in South America where Spain held sway.

On June 2, 1816, with Haitian soldiers, Bolívar landed in Venezuela and fulfilled his pledge, pretty much single-handedly abolishing chattel slavery in nearly the entire continent of South America, a good fifty years before Lincoln signed the "Emancipation Proclamation".

"On 17 December 1830, at the age of 47, Simón Bolívar died of tuberculosis in the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, Gran Colombia (now Colombia). On his deathbed, Bolívar asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O'Leary, to burn the remaining extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches. O'Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a wealth of information about Bolívar's liberal philosophy and thought, as well as details of his personal life, such as his long love affair with Manuela Sáenz. Shortly before her own death in 1856, Sáenz augmented this collection by giving O'Leary her own letters from Bolívar."


His story is truly inspiring and amazing. He definitely deserves the big-screen treatment, although I think a mini-series would more do him justice.

[rtpoe]

The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History
by Edward Brooke-Hitching

There used to be these things called a "cabinet of curiosities". From the late Renaissance to the late Victorian era, collectors would put all their "treasures" into one cupboard or room, without regard to any systematic organization.

This wonderfully illustrated book is a "cabinet of curiosities" for all the weird books that have been made over the millennia.

Works that aren't "books" in the way we consider them. Books that aren't really books. Books made of things other than paper. Books bound in human skin, or written in blood. Books of the occult. Books supposedly written by spirits. Books written in code. Alchemical texts, books of imaginary creatures, and pseudoscience tracts. Literary hoaxes. Novelty books. Books so small you need a magnifying glass and a needle to read them. Books bigger than their reader.....

A collage of sample photos, made by someone else:

Upper left: The "Codex Gigas" (or Devil's Bible), the largest existing medieval manuscript. The 74kg tome is said to have been written in one night by a monk charged with diabolic power.

Upper right: An Italian 'prayer book pistol', which was custom-made for Francesco Morosini, the Duke of Venice (1619-94). The gun can only fire when the book is closed via a trigger-pin concealed in silk thread that's designed to look like a bookmark.

Lower left: A human skull covered in prayers for the deceased, collected by Robert Baden-Powell during an expedition to Ghana in 1895.

Lower right: A portable oak commode disguised as a book with the title "A History of the Low Countries" (Histoire des Pays Bas). It was made in France in 1750.

Center: 'A passage of Martian writing channelled through the hand of the French psychic Helene Smith' as found in the 1899 book "From India to the Planet Mars" by University of Geneva psychologist Theodo Flournoy.

[rtpoe]

So this year's Nobel Prize in Literature has been given out to some author you've never heard of. Seems that this is the case, more often than not. That's fair, there are lots of great authors in the world. They don't all have to be American or even write in English.

But I was wondering - outside of an educational situation, have any of you actively sought out works by a Nobel Laureate to read on your own?

An essay by SF author Robert Silverberg tipped me off to the works of Jose Saramago (1998 Nobel). Saramago's novel Blindness can't be anything BUT science fiction. I got it from my local library, read it, and loved it. Then I read Death with Interruptions, which is a delightful fantasy in the "Death takes a vacation" mode. One of those little "book sharing" boxes in my neighborhood yielded a copy of The Cave, which, while not explicitly SF or fantasy, is partly set in what can best be described as an arcology.

I wonder what else I might be missing......

[rtpoe]

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive
by Philipp Dettmer

A comprehensive and simple - without being simplistic or over-simplifying the subject - book on the workings of the human immune system, by the founder of the "Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell" YouTube channel.

There's a section on how the body deals with bacterial infections, and one on how it fights viruses. There are chapters on HIV (when the immune system itself is targeted by the disease), allergies (when the immune system overreacts), autoimmune disorders (when the immune system forgets it's not supposed to attack you), and cancer (when you WANT the immune system to attack you), and (of course) COVID.

[rtpoe]

The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation
Scott Carney and Jason Miklian

In November, 1970, a cyclone slammed into East Pakistan. It was the deadliest storm in history, leaving some half a million dead in its wake. Fifteen months later, after a brutal and genocidal war, the nation of Bangladesh was born. As Carney and Miklian show, the events were not unconnected.

Not only did the Partition of India split the subcontinent into Hindu (India) and Muslim (Pakistan) sections, but Pakistan was geographically separated into West (Punjabi) and East (Bengali) parts. Being larger and more prosperous, it was easy for West Pakistan to oppress the Bengali in the east. The disruption after the storm passed presented President Yahya Khan with the perfect opportunity to deal with those nasty Bengali once and for all, especially with an election coming up….

Through a mass of documentation and interviews with people who were there, Carney and Miklian have recreated the setting and placed you right in the action.

We are clinging to a palm tree with Mohammad Hai, the son of a farmer, as the eye of the hurricane passes directly over his home. There’s Bengali football star Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, deciding to join the army as a way to get more respect. American expats Candy and Jon Rohde, using their local contacts to organize a relief effort....

[TheZookie007]

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results
by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan

From Gary Keller, author of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It's Not About the Money...It's About Being the Best You Can Be! and Jay Papasan, this book has made more than 575 appearances on national bestseller lists; been #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, New York Times bestseller, and USA Today bestseller; been translated into 40 languages; won 12 book awards; and voted Top 100 Business Book of All Time on Goodreads.

The TL;DR: learn how to focus on the one thing that makes you money, and never falter. Because as the old saying goes, "if you chase three rabbits at once, you will catch none of them."

[rtpoe]

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
Candace Millard

Publisher's blurb:
Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.

From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke’s great envy.

Millard (and the reviewers) try to make it a bit of an indictment of Colonialism, but I didn't buy it. It's a great adventure story, that notes that being the first to see something (sure, local Africans knew about the lake and the river that came from it; no one argues that point) isn't enough to get credited with its "discovery" - you have to properly identify what it is, and formally announce that to the world.

[rtpoe]

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us
by Steve Brusatte

Dinosaurs get ALL the love. Sure, they were big and mean and weird and fascinating and they died out dramatically.

But what of mammals? We are mammals; so why shouldn't the story of that line of creatures get some appreciation?

Brusatte does a darn good job!

From the change in skull structure that started Mammals on their way, to the development of teeth that could do more than just cut or chomp (seriously, he makes that fascinating!), to growing huge once the dinosaurs were gone from the scene, to going back into the water to become whales et al. (there's a great chain of fossil evidence to show how it happened), to the weirdness of mammals in South America....

The topic really needs to be told in more detail (mammals have been around for much more time than those overrated dinosaurs), but for now, Brusatte's overview is a great read.

[rtpoe]

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments
Joe Posnanski

It's not really a collection of essays on why baseball is great, or even a history of the game. It is Posnanski using his skills as a master teller of tales to share some great, amazing, heartwarming, and outright hilarious moments from all levels of the game.

A retired star pitcher teaches a Little Leaguer how to throw the knuckleball, and she uses it to throw a perfect game. An actual potato appears on the field of play in a minor league game. A team in the College World Series perfectly pulls of a trick play.

He even includes a few movie moments - because, seriously, what other sport has as many great and varied movies as baseball?

There are actually 108 of these moments (if you include the Introduction and Epilogue - same number as the stitches on a regulation baseball - and are all short enough for quick reading.

Here's what another reader had to say about it:

[rtpoe]

Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Quantum Physics is Different
by Philip Ball

Ball brings us up to date on the latest thinking and experiments in quantum physics, putting to rest (he hopes) some of the stupid analogies that have become all too common, explaining - in not too much detail; you'll just have to trust him - that when you look at the mathematics, almost all of the befuddlement goes away.

It comes down to more of a philosophical question: What can we know about the universe, and how do we know it? if there are limits to our knowledge, what does that mean for how we perceive reality?

[Zealot]

Just finished "The Military Dimension",an anthology of short stories by David Drake.