Category: Booklog

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]

I don’t believe the actual book is out yet, but you can get an electronic Advance Reading copy of the Nth Miles Vorkosigan book, Cryoburn already. Kate picked up a copy, and while she hasn’t gotten around to it yet, I read it this week while putting SteelyKid to bed. The book is another “Lord… Continue reading Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald [Library of Babel]

Lest you think that the previous couple of posts indicate that I’m just a cranky curmudgeon who doesn’t like anything he reads, let me put in a plug for Elijah Wald’s How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll. I read about half of this piecemeal over a couple of months, then finished it on the… Continue reading How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald [Library of Babel]

Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts [Library of Babel]

While Adam Roberts was kind of an ass regarding last year’s Hugo ballot, the summary of his latest, Yellow Blue Tibia, sounded pretty entertaining to me, and it was on the Locus Recommended Reading list, so I got it out of the library. The book is presented as the memoir of Konstantin Skvorecky, a Soviet… Continue reading Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts [Library of Babel]

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo

There has been a fair amount of discussion of Graham Farmelo’s The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom— Peter Woit reviewed it on his blog, the New York Times reviewed it a couple of Sundays ago, Barnes and Noble’s online review did a piece on it, etc.. Nearly all… Continue reading The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo

Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock [Library of Babel]

Over at the Science and Entertainment Exchange, they have a nice post about the Darwin movie, which also appears in today’s Links Dump, with John Scalzi addressing the putative controversy about the movie’s distribution. John’s suggestion for how to attract major US distribution– Will Smith, explosions, and Jennifer Connelly’s breasts– reminded me of The Life… Continue reading Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock [Library of Babel]

How Many Licks? or How to Estimate Damn Near Anything by Aaron Santos

One of the odd things about the C-list celebrity life of a semi-pro blogger is that I get a bunch of requests to review books on physics-related topics. Some of these take the form of a book showing up out of the blue, others are preceded by a polite request from the author. Aaron Santos’s… Continue reading How Many Licks? or How to Estimate Damn Near Anything by Aaron Santos

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest [Library of Babel]

I finished re-reading Infinite Jest this week. I’m a few weeks ahead of the Infinite Summer crowd, which is a little frustrating, because I really want to see what they say about the later bits, but they won’t get there for a while yet. Anyway, this is a tough book to summarize, because it’s both… Continue reading David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest [Library of Babel]

Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries [Library of Babel]

Jo Walton has a very nice review of Karl Schroeder’s Permanence over at Tor.com, which contains a terrific summary of what makes Schroeder great: The problem with talking about Permanence (2002), or any of Schroeder’s work really, is that it’s too easy to get caught up in talking about the wonderful ideas and backgrounds and… Continue reading Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries [Library of Babel]

13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, by Michael Brooks

Michael Brooks’s 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense turned up on a lot of “Best science books of 2008” lists, and the concept of a book about scientific anomalies seemed interesting, so I ordered it from Amazon. It’s a quick read (a mere 210 pages, and breezily written), but ultimately a frustrating book. It took… Continue reading 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, by Michael Brooks