Spoiler alert: The Lusitania sinks at the end and the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allies. Dead Wake is the first book by Erik Larson that I’ve read, though I know his books by reputation (especially Devil in the White City, which seems like it’s been read by almost […]
Archives for 2016
2016 Hugo Nominee | Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
2016-06-03 · by ·
If there’s a single word to describe how Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti reads, it’s “refreshing.” It’s short, accessible work of science fiction that eschews the usual cast of western characters, while adopting a universe that reminded me of William Kotzwinkle’s ET: The Green Planet. Space travel is by organic vehicles and aliens are as foreign as the creatures of […]
Book Review | Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
2016-06-03 · by ·
I can’t tell if Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration belongs more in management, inspiration, self-help, or fodder-for-fans. What I can say, though, is that I sure enjoyed reading it. Though, born in West Virginia, Ed Catmull moved to Utah as a child and was raised in neighborhoods near […]
Book Review | The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
2016-04-25 · by ·
There’s much to like about The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl’s homage to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields–some of the greatest American poets of the 19th century. It is a historical thriller written with a taste of the literary, and The Dante Club has moments of chilling baroque […]
Book Review | From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives by Jeffrey E. Garten
2016-04-04 · by ·
In From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives, Jeffery Garten offers a brief history of globalization over the course of humanity’s history. It’s an enjoyable jaunt through the last thousand years, and while Garten’s approach is less that of a historian and more of a layman’s, his broad strokes make […]
Book Review | Star Wars: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray
2016-04-01 · by ·
If the Star Wars trilogies are concerned with the operatic drama of the Skywalker family and their close associates, then Lost Stars delivers fills in the spaces in between by providing a sampling of back story into the individuals that make up the Imperial fleet and Rebellion fighters. In this way, Lost Stars is a […]
Book Review |Tarkin by James Luceno
2016-03-27 · by ·
I’ve always thought of Grand Moff Tarkin was one of the under-appreciated villains of the Star Wars saga. He was a powerful commander close to the Emperor, called Darth Vader an “old friend,” and did not hesitate to destroy the planet Alderaan. And yet, for all his power, he survives no further in the original […]
Book Review | Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant
2016-02-28 · by ·
Tuxedo Park is about a Wall Street tycoon, a brilliant scientific mind, and an inventor of devices and instruments used by the military to defeat the forces of evil. No, he’s not Tony Stark; he’s Alfred Lee Loomis, and his work helped bring down the Nazis and win World War II. And yet, you’re unlikely […]
Book Review | Golden Son by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #2)
2016-02-03 · by ·
It takes only a moment for Darrow to be thrust back in to the heart of danger and desperation. Now the ward of the most powerful house on Mars, he leads a coterie of friends and nominal allies as he leaves the Institute and ascends to the Academy to learn the art of war in […]
Book Review | Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
2016-01-26 · by ·
The further I got into the Seveneves thought experiment, the more I wanted to like it. It’s an epic disaster novel (or is it an epic disaster of a novel? More on that later) that pits the human race against nature as the moon explodes and its meteoric remains begin to fall to Earth, setting the […]
