I’ve been woefully behind on the booklog for a long, long time now, but we’ll take a lazy post-Thanksgiving Sunday morning to catch up on a few of the more notable books in the backlog. These comments won’t be in any particular order, and, in fact, will start with the most recently read of the… Continue reading Adam Felber, Schrödinger’s Ball [Library of Babel]
Category: Booklog
Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics
Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics is probably the hot physics book of the year. Granted, that’s not saying very much, relative to whatever Oprah’s reading this week, but it’s led to no end of discussion among physics types. And also, frequently, the spectacle of people with Ph.D.’s squabbling like children, so reviewing it is… Continue reading Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics
Chuck Klosterman, Chuck Klosterman IV [Library of Babel]
The Onion’s AV Club review of Chuck Klosterman’s Chuck Klosterman IV came across my RSS feeds the other day, and reminded me that I haven’t actually booklogged it. That’s a glaring omission, as a quote from it was the basis for the third most viewed post on this weblog to date. The book is subtitled… Continue reading Chuck Klosterman, Chuck Klosterman IV [Library of Babel]
Brandon Sanderson, Elantris [Library of Babel]
When Brandon Sanderson’s debut novel, Elantris first appeared on store shelves, I was tempted to buy it. It had a lot of things going for it: good review quotes, a striking cover, an interesting description, and it’s published by Tor, who are usually pretty reliable. I couldn’t quite figure out, though, whether it was the… Continue reading Brandon Sanderson, Elantris [Library of Babel]
Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science
Back in May, the DAMOP keynote address was delivered by a DoE program officer who basically chided scientists for being politically active, in a “you have only yourselves to blame if your funding gets cut” sort of way. Obviously, she hasn’t read The Republican War on Science, or she’d understand why 48 Nobel laureates publically… Continue reading Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science
Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days
Scott Westerfeld’s new YA novel The Last Days is a sequel to his earlier Peeps, so technically, it’s a book about teenage vampires. Only really it’s a book about a bunch of misfit kids forming a band and trying to make it big. While the Vampire Apocalypse happens around them. In Peeps, we learn of… Continue reading Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days
The Last Days SPOILERS
The booklog post on Scott Westerfeld’s The Last Days got to be long enough that I wanted to split it just to keep it from eating the front page. Which would sort of preclude using the extended entry field for spoiler protetction, so here’s the stuff with the spoilers. Don’t read the rest of this… Continue reading The Last Days SPOILERS
Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong
The two most talked-about books in physics this year are probably a pair of anti-sting-theory books, Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics, and Peter Woit’s Not Even Wrong, which shares a name with Jacques Distler’s favorite weblog. I got review copies of both, but Not Even Wrong arrived first (thanks, Peter), and gets to be… Continue reading Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong
Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See [Library of Babel]
The passing of Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin in a freak accident while diving with stingrays (and not while sticking his thumb of the butt of some exotic and venomous creature) has made a big splash in blogdom. I was never a fan of his shows, so I don’t have anything specific to say about him,… Continue reading Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See [Library of Babel]
Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon [Library of Babel]
Speaking of “Iain M. Banks without the literary ambitions,” some time back, I read Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, but never got around to booklogging it. In many ways, it’s similar to the Asher book, though, so I might as well take care of it today. This is the first of a series of books following… Continue reading Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon [Library of Babel]