Book Review: Food: A Love Story- Jim Gaffigan

Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've always said that I enjoy comedy audiobooks that are read by their authors. Food: A Love Story was no different. The biggest downside was that my wife caught me laughing and listening to it without her and insisted that I slow it down and share it so I had to listen to the book at normal pace. Jim Gaffigan is his normal cleanly funny self and I enjoyed the book thoroughly. This book still featured some of his stand-up routines as chapters, but less so than his prior book Dad Is Fat, making much of it original. I also liked his nod to Cincinnati, Ohio cuisine with Skyline's chili on spaghetti because it works. I could go on more, but he tells the stories and jokes better. I'll simply say that my wife thoroughly agrees with him about "sea bugs" and that I can relate to him and his dad who loves steak, but isn't always the best at grilling it. For more than that, you'll just have to enjoy the book yourself.

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The Serial

My sister recommended The Serial to me back at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I finally got around to listening to it here this spring.  I chose to listen to it in place of an adult nonfiction this round.  The sort was interesting and riveting and I know that the goal was for it to be listened to a week at a time, the way old serial magazine stories were written, but just like I don't like listening to stories that are part of a series until the series is complete, I preferred the podcast this way- all at one, rather than one at a time.  I listened to a lot of it while I had down time because of student testing that was going on and I think I finished the whole series in less than 36 if not 24 hours.  First, the catchy theme music sounds best at x2.  There were times where I had to slow it down to listen to some of the low-quality audio and telephone recordings, but overall I enjoyed listening to it.  I feel conflicted about the case and personally I'm not sure there was really enough for him to be convicted in the past, but now that he has been and he'r pretty much at the end of his appeal options, I am not convinced there is enough evidence to release him.  Personally, I think he is innocent and I was glad to hear this week that his case is being looked at again, but it does make me wonder, as well, why is his case getting a second look?  Is it the most deserving, aren't there others, and how do you decide?  I don't have these answers, but it does make you think.

Book Review: The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Scarlet Letter is one of those books that I feel like I was supposed to have read in High School, but it was never assigned. The high school teacher at my school does read it with some classes. It was also recommended to me by my wife. When I chose it was my classic to read this time I knew that it was about a woman who had to wear a red A because she had been (view spoiler)[adulterous and I had the vague premonition that it had been with a clergyman (hide spoiler)]. Although the book wasn't all that surprising or shocking to me, I can see why it was at the time when it was written. This is also a book where I have not heard a lot of textual analysis and I'm sure I could pull more out of a closer reading, but I pulled out a few main things. First, Hester [about my only complaint about the book is that the reader I swear said Ester the whole time] is not really ashamed of what she did, or a least is not going to let it define her. Her daughter, (view spoiler)[born out of the adultery (hide spoiler)] even views the scarlet A as adornment or jewelry that her mother wore and didn't recognize her without it on briefly at one point in the book. Hester is described as being the most helpful and outstanding citizen who took care of those around her, even though they shunned her some for what she had done. Meanwhile, her lover was tormented by what he had done and hid his sin shamefully. Although the book is probably a criticism of Puritan legalism, like The Crucible later did to fight against McCarthyism, it seems to say that we can take the sin or thing that shames us the most and rise above it and not let it define us. I've thought much about what big sin might be and what I could do to over come it. I haven't been able to settle on one, but the book has made me think. That alone made it worth the read to me.

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Book Review: The Good Lord Bird- James McBride

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was not a book I would have normally picked up. It made it onto my read list as an obligatory adult fiction novel and because it had been a National Book Award winner (2013). During the prologue I was really skeptical, that lasted less than a minute of listening to the audiobook. Less than 5 minutes into the book I was laughing and hooked. Before I was 20% of the way through the book I was recommending it to friends and family members. The story was thoroughly engaging and dealt with serious issues while remaining funny and light-hearted. Michael Boatman did an amazing job of bringing the characters to life- and this may sound a little racist, but he did a great "stereotypical" Southern black guy and Appalachian abolitionist voice for the two main characters Henry [Henrietta] Shakleford, a liberated slave, and John Brown. The book was obviously fiction, but in addition to entertaining me and doing a good job of highlighting the issues and struggles at the time in regards to slavery. It also spurned in me the desire to learn more about John Brown and the pre-Civil War time because the book was so obviously fiction in regards to John Brown it is hard to know how much is true. Certainly many of the events were, but I doubt many of the conversations were. It just concerns me the number of people who have said that this book enlightened them in their understanding of John Brown. The Good Lord Bird itself, if I remember correctly was a woodpecker [probably the ivory-billed woodpecker], but was an amazing bit of symbolism. I ended up taking a day or two off after the book to simply ponder it, which is very rare for me. I still cannot get it out of my head. I look forward to reading some of James McBride's works, or maybe even re-reading this one.

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Book Review: My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs- Brian Switek

My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs by Brian Switek
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book kicked off a week where I read five books in about as many days and all of them were great. I first heard about the book a couple of summers ago from Science Friday and tried immediately to find an audio copy. It took a while but I finally found one and was very eager to listen to it. Brian Switek talked about how most kids love dinosaurs, but go through it as a phase and he never really grew out of it. I laughed out loud as he described how his wife has to put up with the science mess in his office and has overflowed into all of the other rooms of their apartment because it reminded me of how my wife has to put up with me. Through the book he described his obsession with and hobby of paleontology and although I love Ohio's Paleozoic fossils it made me want to just go West and hunt dino fossils instead. After than he spent a chapter at a time on topics of specific dinosaur features- noises they made, how they could have mated, feathers, and other current research. It was a thoroughly enjoyable book that I was unable to put down in finished in less than a day.

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Book Review: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything- Christopher Hitchens

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A few years ago my best friend and I were talking about Richard Dawkins and my friend mentioned that he wasn't sure why Dawkins got as much attention as he did. He even complained about The God Delusion and how it could have been so much more, but instead repeated a lot of the same old arguments. I pointed out that I think Dawkins popularity comes from being known in the science field and then making the transition to talking about religion. But just as I've said before that not every Christian should discuss or debate science, so not every scientist should discuss or debate religion. That conversation led to other atheist authors that my friend did recommend. One was Sam Harris and the other was Christopher Hitchens. I read The Moral Landscape at the time and actually found a lot of the arguments pretty compelling. I also, about that same time, finally listened to The GOD Delusion. Hitchens kind of went to the back of my mind. I stumbled across this book while browsing for a non-Christian religion or philosophy book to read this round and only when I checked it out did I remember that my friend had recommended Hitchens to me.

This book didn't impress me. Psychology research says that when you confront someone with facts that go against their beliefs that often times they will resist them and it will only make them believe their beliefs all the more. Even going in aware of this mindset I wasn't moved by much of his arguments. I also cannot say that I, believe my beliefs more, there are some doubts that remain or have risen up fresh, but overall I found the book unconvincing. Yes, many atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, but Hitchens falls prey to several logical fallacies and to over-generalization.

As a scientist and as an educator one that I try to avoid are absolutes. The subtitle alone "How Religion Poisons Everything" (emphasis added) is understandable because it will help market and sell the book and it is more sensational. I can even understand using it, although somewhat inconsistently, as a slogan or catchphrase within the book (this was especially odd to me, since I know it was published with a different subtitle in the UK, I assume the catchphrase had to change in those editions ). He frequently went after a straw-man argument in these cases, pointing out the worst religious extremism and heresy. There were attempts to refute the "No true (insert religious faith here) would do/believe that", but it was unsatisfactory to me." And he is correct there have been many wrongs, but when generalized to the extreme "everything" he just plain gets it wrong.

Furthermore, he had trouble giving any credit. For example, he pointed to Einstein, who almost certainly was a deist, and to Blaise Pascal, and others and pointed out that they "were the best that could be hoped for" given the beliefs of their time. In other words, he took people who believed in one religious faith or another and discounted their beliefs because they were ahead of their times, but not far enough ahead of their times to truly break-free.

It wasn't that I rejected his ideas outright, or that I disagreed with a lot of his examples [because I did agree with many], I just resist the "all" and "everything" extrapolation. I don't buy it and it isn't enough for me. I suppose it was worth listening to his arguements and claims, but they didn't convince me. I was also sad to learn that he has passed away since and so I won't have the chance to let him have another go at it, I am kind of looking forward to letting Sam Harris try again soon with his book Waking Up.

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Book Review: Ringworld- Larry Niven

Ringworld by Larry Niven
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am always hesitant to pickup new sci-fi and fantasy. Most authors spend so much time creating worlds that they end up getting lost in them and end up writing really long books [or series] that they have trouble ending. So, I was then pleasantly surprised at how short Ringworld was and how concise Larry Niven was in writing Ringworld.

The story was immediately compelling and the world was futuristic. The world was described well enough to get the point across without treating the reader as such an outsider that it was over-explained [or doing the opposite that some books do of not describing it at all and letting the reader figure it out on their own later on]. The plot was immediate and compelling even though it was quite a while before the main characters ended up at the Ringworld and even longer before the (view spoiler)[crash (hide spoiler)]landed on the planet. It then becomes a story about survival in addition to the mystery of this unique planet. Personally, I enjoyed the science in the science fiction much of it was realistic and the sections that are not were at least believable.

On odd thing that I noticed about it was that I had to pay attention a little more than other books and that focus led me to not pick it up a frequently as my enjoyment level should have dictated. None-the-less, it is very easy to understand why it won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. I don't know that I am invested in the world enough to read the sequels, but I could see myself re-reading it because it was very good.

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