More books I've read
Dec. 28th, 2018 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mafiefFinally, I’ve gotten this posted!
What I’ve read:
The Dry – Jane Harper
Force of Nature – Jane Harper
The Raven Cycle Series (Books #1-4) – Maggie Stiefvater
I’ll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
We are Legion – We are Bob (Bobiverse, #1) – Dennis E Taylor
A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1) – Madeleine L’Engle
The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfayer, #1) – Becky Chambers
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Lady Sherlock Series (#1 and #2) – Sherry Thomas
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
Circe – Madeline Miller
Thoughts are behind the cut.
The Dry – Jane Harper (Aaron Falk, #1)
Good crime mystery set in Australia. Interesting set up and characters. The plot was believable and I didn’t guess the guy till almost the end. So overall, it was well crafted and interesting.
The reader for the audiobook had an Australian accent and I may have swooned a little. His speech was very slow and deliberate, which sometimes tricked me into thinking that my phone turned off randomly.
Force of Nature – Jane Harper (Aaron Falk, #2)
Second in the series, and it was also a good, decent crime mystery. Again, read by the same guy as the first book. This time they sped up his speech speed. My only complaint is that the main character, Aaron Falk, just seems wooden at this point and interchangeable with the male lead character in The Vanishing Season.
The Raven Cycle – Maggie Stiefvater
Books read in series: The Raven Boys; The Dream Thieves; Blue Lily, Lily Blue; The Raven King
Set in small town, Henrietta, in Virginia featuring a super posh prep high school. Gansey, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah (sort of), all go to this all male school. Gansey is super obsessed with finding the Raven King who could be asleep somewhere on the lay line in Henrietta. Blue Sargent is a daughter of a psychic mom and a semi-random guy. (Blue figuring out who her dad is eventually.) She lives with other psychics in a very eclectic house. During one of her psychic trips with an aunt, she sees that Gansey dies. Also, she had a prophesy that she will kill her true love if she kisses him. She hates Raven Boys (what the boys are called who go to the school) because they are mostly rich and entitled brats. Eventually the boys and Blue team up and the search begins.
So, there was a witchcraft and tarot cards and talk of powers and ley lines. I was slightly uncomfortable with that I think is reasonable considering how I grew up and that there were families in my small school who considered Mary Poppins evil and a witch. Anywho! I love Stiefvater writing style, which is why I read the rest of the series. She uses clever ways to describe her characters and scenery. Her characters are relatable, and some are deeply flawed. I liked how she moved the plot along and unraveled the mysteries she put in her world.
This was the series I finished while recovering from a freak corneal abrasion and subsequent infection in my eye. I was very thankful for audiobooks at this point because all I could do was stay in the dark with my eyes closed. I’m just about 100% better now (yahoo!). But, I’ll totally need to write up my experience as hurt/comfort fic.
I’ll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
The story centers around the twins Noah and Jude Sweetwine. They come from a very artistic mother and a dad who is more logic driven. Both twins are competitive and try to get more attention from either parent.
The book starts with Noah’s point of view. Noah has so much artistic talent in his little finger, it’s nuts. He thinks in colors and paintings, and his thoughts are very descriptive and heavy on metaphors. For example: “Jude barfs bright blue fluorescent barf all over the table, but I’m the only one who notices.” Some of the descriptions go a little over board. I ended up wondering if all of the overly dramatic approach to everything was necessary, but Noah is very high spirited and dramatic. Noah wants to go to a very exclusive art school and is spending the summer trying to prepare. He also meets a new boy neighbor and totally has a crush on him.
Jude’s point of view starts 2-3? Or so years in the future. She is in art school and Noah is not. We don’t know why yet. She practices her grandma’s bible (sayings about keeping an onion in your pocket to ward off men, and old sayings like that) religiously, since her mom died. She is not doing well in school and believes her mom’s ghost is sabotaging her art. After talking with her advisor, she decides she must work in stone because her ghost mom won’t be able to destroy it. So she meets a famous and brilliant stone artist. I’m missing some of the other important plot points in my description as the book is rather complex.
This book was almost 180 from what I consider normal. What I would consider a logical way of doing things, these characters go and do the exact opposite. There is so much inter-family conflict, the characters getting in their own way, have dramatic emotional responses to lots of things, and misunderstandings galore. If you can get through the first chapter of Noah’s point of view, the story is very interesting and complex. I like how the author ties resolves everything in the end. At the end I (me!) actually felt breathless and went ‘dang’. So, it ended up being a very enjoyable book and kept my attention. This was one of the view hard copy book that I read instead of an audio book.
We are Legion – We are Bob – Dennis E Taylor (Bobiverse, #1)
Confession: my default name for anything when I’m not feeling creative is Bob for something male-ish and Bob-ette (think barrette) for something female-ish.
Bob is a software engineer who just sold his company. He is not set for early retirement and visiting a nerd convention to celebrate. Before attending the convention, he decided cryofreeze his brain if he dies to be revived later. On the way from his hotel to the convention he is hit by a car. He wants up bodiless. Way in the future, they have figured out how to revive the people who cryofroze their brains, but these people are not considered people but property. Reviving these people is critical because they need them to man spaceships for long distance flights. Earth is on the verge of a conflict that could wipe itself out and running out of resources, so finding new planets and systems is important. Bob needs to learn how to work without a body and learn how to function as a program quickly, so he can go out into the stars with the spacecraft. His job is go to different planets, harvest materials and set up a 3D printer to make new spacecraft. He also clones himself so there are more Bob’s around (thus the We are Bob title). Each of the Bob clones has some unique personality traits, so there is some variety.
Whenever I describe scifi I feel like I’m going crazy. I keep feeling like I need to justify “Yah it sounds strange, but the book was actually cool and interesting!” I would consider it solid hardcore scifi and one of the few books I read this year writing by a guy. This book was more procedural, and I skimmed through some of the computer sci logic that I don’t really care about. There is some addressing emotions of the character, but the author put an emotion damper on the character, so he could be more logical and get through high stress situations. Once or twice that character would have an emotional response, but most of the time Bob was very logical. This book also felt like a set up book. There are two other books in the series that I’ll interlibrary loan through my library because I’d like to see what he’s done to his world. There are no audiobooks available, so I need to time it so I actually have some free time to sit and read it.
A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1) – Madeleine L’Engle
Way better than the movie and I have no idea why they tried to make this into a movie. The other books in the series are on my list and available in audiobooks.
The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfayer, #1) – Becky Chambers
Another scifi book, but compared to “We are Bob”, this one felt more warm. A ragtag team is on a long-distance voyage to punch a wormhole from one new planet to the other known ones. The team is filled with different species from humans to a lizard one to an AI. The author chose to use algae as the ship’s fuel source, which I think is a super smart decision. Each team member has a unique culture behind it. One of my favorite characters is Doctor Chief (he’s the crew’s doctor and chief). His species start as shes when they are younger and change to males as they get older. This isn’t so far fetch as there are fish on Earth that have this same scheme. Doctor Chief loves to cook and there is time spent in describing foods and comforts found in sharing a meal.
There are conflicts that inevitably happen (their algaeist is a dick, but he has an interesting twist happen), but are resolved with empathy. The captain and crew have a lot of emotional awareness, which was nice to read.
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Starr is a black girl living in a poorer neighborhood and she attends a white private school. She has to exist in two completely different worlds. Her dad was an ex-con and her mom in the medical field. She attends a party and ends up leaving with her childhood friend Khalil once shots are fired. They drive home, and Khalil is pulled over by a cop. The pull over is described in detail from Starr’s point of view. Something happens and the cop shoots Khalil multiple times.
We see how the shooting is perceived from Starr, to how the news media spins it and her response, to how her family and neighbors take it and her response, to how her white and Asian friends in the private school talk about it and her response. Like “I’ll Give You the Sun”, this was another book that was outside of my experience and understanding of the world. The book has examples of subtitle racism which are rather disheartening. Not an easy book to read at all, but still very good.
Lady Sherlock Series (#1 and #2) – Sherry Thomas
Let’s see... Tropes uses are Sherlock is a women and unreliable Watson. It was fun to read how the author reinterpreted the Sherlock Holmes persona. I’m waiting for the third book.
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
My first foray into Agatha Christie. It was fine and interesting. The parts that made no sense to me ended up being important plot points, so yah to me for seeing that. I think I need to read another before I make an opinion about her works. I have two other books in the que, so we’ll see.
Circe – Madeline Miller
The story focuses on Circe from her life with her father Helios to her exile on a deserted island. She grows during this time from a naive girl who thought she couldn’t do anything to someone who put fear in other greater gods. Yes, there is rape in the book, but it is not described. What is described is her response afterwards and turning the men to pigs.
This book is well researched and takes stories from multiple ancient sources (the author majored in Classics from different Ivy leagues, so hopefully the book would be well researched on that front!). The beginning I found a little dull since Circe whined a lot, but that was needed to show her eventual growth in understanding how the world works. Also, Greek mythology and the Greek gods are weird! I hadn’t realized HOW since I’m not that well versed in mythology. There is an overarching drive that the author touches upon frequently through the book.
Science!
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta Lacks suffered from a tumor of the cervics. She went to John Hopkins to have treatment. Before her treatments began, the doctors took a routine biopsy of the cancerous cells. Treatments went ok, but she ultimately died from the tumor and treatment. Her cells that were biopsied, however, flourished in cell culture and were the first cells that could be successfully cultured. Because of how well those cells grew, researchers were able to share these cells with other researchers and thus human cell culture and procedures were essentially started. These cells have helped develop vaccines, other medical treatments, and were even sent into space. Biotech companies have used these cells to grow other compounds and sell those compounds and the cells. In contrast, the Lacks family are poor and can barely afford medical care.
The author tells the story from the perspective of Henrietta Lacks and scientists. There are so many instances of poor communication of science to the Lacks family, which is infuriating. At that time, keeping the patient’s information secret wasn’t practice.
Example: a group of researchers wanted to analyze the Lacks family members and compare their findings to Henrietta Lack’s cells. They drew blood from the family and the family thought that they were getting a cancer screening test. They were not. When the author reached out to one of the researchers who performed tests on the family’s blood, the researcher did not agree and mentioned that they would still be interested in more samples from the family. I facepalmed after the last bit. Ugh.
In the spring semester I’m teaching mammalian cell culture. We are using hamster cells, and not human. I wonder how many of the techniques and concepts that I’ll be teaching are due directly to the HeLa cells? That part bothers me a little and something I need to figure out.
The Gene: An Intimate History – Siddhartha Mukherjee
He starts off by explaining his family and the prevalence of schizophrenia and bipolar. Using that as a basis, how do we know how a normal gene functions and how do we know that information? He starts back at Aristotle and Pythagoras and goes into the ‘future of the future’.
These are the stories I’ve grown up on as a scientist, thus the information is very familiar. That said, I do think it is approachable and well written. It was all the stories we use in intro bio, genetics, molecular genetics, ethics, etc. It’s like knowing the stories by heart, but then seeing a fresh take on them. Let’s take Mendel as a example. He is considered the father of genetics and determined that traits were passed down through generation through packets of information (later called genes). I’ve taken multiple classes that taught Mendel in various ways, read his (very dull) scientific paper, and even taught about him and his work. But this is the first time I was given the historical background and personality of the man. How his work was (wrongly) used as justification by the US to sterilize those considered of ‘inferior genetic stock’ and how that ‘success’ further influenced the Nazis. He spends a lot of time looking at the dark side of genetics and how it was used in eugenics. These parts were rather sobering to read. :(
The section on genetic screening brought up my personal struggle that I went through while pregnant. Do I want to have the fetus screened? What do I do with the information? How is this selection no different than the eugenics of before?
I loved this book. I need to purchase a copy of my own, so I can go through again and annotate it (I borrowed an audiobook from the library). I never really understood why we tell the particular stories that we do in our science classes until now. It has changed how I want to teach certain topics. There are topics that are written so clearly that it would be perfect for a class to read through. It was also interesting that some of the same sections that I feel are disjointed in genetic class lectures are the same sections that he ended up having to change his approach to telling the story. We use the same approach, but he fleshes it out way better.
While I can sing the praises of this book all day long, my husband is the opposite. The book is dense. I had him listen to 15 minutes of it. He yawned and started falling asleep. He wished for accounting and numbers and felt the info went over his head. In defense of the book, we were in one of the more complicated sections of linking genes to our personalities. Ah, well.
Did Not Finish
The Fifth Heart – Dan Simmons
Another Sherlock Holmes book set during the hiatus. I got about three chapters in and got annoyed with how Holmes was protrayed. I kept saying ‘not my Holmes’ and with that, I gave it up.
Mrs Sherlock Holmes – Brad Ricca
A history of a female detective known as Mrs Sherlock Holmes. Or so I thought it was. The book bounces between two cases, which is unnecessary and causes confusion. Remembering the details from one case after another dense case was difficult. I made it about 25% through the book and the detective who would later be known as Mrs Sherlock Holmes was not even introduced.
The hard copy of the book was sent back to the library. I need time and thought to devote to this book so I can keep track of the details. It was interesting from a historical perspective, but that was about it. Maybe I’ll try it during the summer.
Currently reading or next up:
Mortal Engines – Philip Reeve
Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding – Noel Kingsbury
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice or, On the Segregation of the Queen – Laurie R King
The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Agatha Christie
What I’ve read:
The Dry – Jane Harper
Force of Nature – Jane Harper
The Raven Cycle Series (Books #1-4) – Maggie Stiefvater
I’ll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
We are Legion – We are Bob (Bobiverse, #1) – Dennis E Taylor
A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1) – Madeleine L’Engle
The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfayer, #1) – Becky Chambers
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Lady Sherlock Series (#1 and #2) – Sherry Thomas
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
Circe – Madeline Miller
Thoughts are behind the cut.
The Dry – Jane Harper (Aaron Falk, #1)
Good crime mystery set in Australia. Interesting set up and characters. The plot was believable and I didn’t guess the guy till almost the end. So overall, it was well crafted and interesting.
The reader for the audiobook had an Australian accent and I may have swooned a little. His speech was very slow and deliberate, which sometimes tricked me into thinking that my phone turned off randomly.
Force of Nature – Jane Harper (Aaron Falk, #2)
Second in the series, and it was also a good, decent crime mystery. Again, read by the same guy as the first book. This time they sped up his speech speed. My only complaint is that the main character, Aaron Falk, just seems wooden at this point and interchangeable with the male lead character in The Vanishing Season.
The Raven Cycle – Maggie Stiefvater
Books read in series: The Raven Boys; The Dream Thieves; Blue Lily, Lily Blue; The Raven King
Set in small town, Henrietta, in Virginia featuring a super posh prep high school. Gansey, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah (sort of), all go to this all male school. Gansey is super obsessed with finding the Raven King who could be asleep somewhere on the lay line in Henrietta. Blue Sargent is a daughter of a psychic mom and a semi-random guy. (Blue figuring out who her dad is eventually.) She lives with other psychics in a very eclectic house. During one of her psychic trips with an aunt, she sees that Gansey dies. Also, she had a prophesy that she will kill her true love if she kisses him. She hates Raven Boys (what the boys are called who go to the school) because they are mostly rich and entitled brats. Eventually the boys and Blue team up and the search begins.
So, there was a witchcraft and tarot cards and talk of powers and ley lines. I was slightly uncomfortable with that I think is reasonable considering how I grew up and that there were families in my small school who considered Mary Poppins evil and a witch. Anywho! I love Stiefvater writing style, which is why I read the rest of the series. She uses clever ways to describe her characters and scenery. Her characters are relatable, and some are deeply flawed. I liked how she moved the plot along and unraveled the mysteries she put in her world.
This was the series I finished while recovering from a freak corneal abrasion and subsequent infection in my eye. I was very thankful for audiobooks at this point because all I could do was stay in the dark with my eyes closed. I’m just about 100% better now (yahoo!). But, I’ll totally need to write up my experience as hurt/comfort fic.
I’ll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
The story centers around the twins Noah and Jude Sweetwine. They come from a very artistic mother and a dad who is more logic driven. Both twins are competitive and try to get more attention from either parent.
The book starts with Noah’s point of view. Noah has so much artistic talent in his little finger, it’s nuts. He thinks in colors and paintings, and his thoughts are very descriptive and heavy on metaphors. For example: “Jude barfs bright blue fluorescent barf all over the table, but I’m the only one who notices.” Some of the descriptions go a little over board. I ended up wondering if all of the overly dramatic approach to everything was necessary, but Noah is very high spirited and dramatic. Noah wants to go to a very exclusive art school and is spending the summer trying to prepare. He also meets a new boy neighbor and totally has a crush on him.
Jude’s point of view starts 2-3? Or so years in the future. She is in art school and Noah is not. We don’t know why yet. She practices her grandma’s bible (sayings about keeping an onion in your pocket to ward off men, and old sayings like that) religiously, since her mom died. She is not doing well in school and believes her mom’s ghost is sabotaging her art. After talking with her advisor, she decides she must work in stone because her ghost mom won’t be able to destroy it. So she meets a famous and brilliant stone artist. I’m missing some of the other important plot points in my description as the book is rather complex.
This book was almost 180 from what I consider normal. What I would consider a logical way of doing things, these characters go and do the exact opposite. There is so much inter-family conflict, the characters getting in their own way, have dramatic emotional responses to lots of things, and misunderstandings galore. If you can get through the first chapter of Noah’s point of view, the story is very interesting and complex. I like how the author ties resolves everything in the end. At the end I (me!) actually felt breathless and went ‘dang’. So, it ended up being a very enjoyable book and kept my attention. This was one of the view hard copy book that I read instead of an audio book.
We are Legion – We are Bob – Dennis E Taylor (Bobiverse, #1)
Confession: my default name for anything when I’m not feeling creative is Bob for something male-ish and Bob-ette (think barrette) for something female-ish.
Bob is a software engineer who just sold his company. He is not set for early retirement and visiting a nerd convention to celebrate. Before attending the convention, he decided cryofreeze his brain if he dies to be revived later. On the way from his hotel to the convention he is hit by a car. He wants up bodiless. Way in the future, they have figured out how to revive the people who cryofroze their brains, but these people are not considered people but property. Reviving these people is critical because they need them to man spaceships for long distance flights. Earth is on the verge of a conflict that could wipe itself out and running out of resources, so finding new planets and systems is important. Bob needs to learn how to work without a body and learn how to function as a program quickly, so he can go out into the stars with the spacecraft. His job is go to different planets, harvest materials and set up a 3D printer to make new spacecraft. He also clones himself so there are more Bob’s around (thus the We are Bob title). Each of the Bob clones has some unique personality traits, so there is some variety.
Whenever I describe scifi I feel like I’m going crazy. I keep feeling like I need to justify “Yah it sounds strange, but the book was actually cool and interesting!” I would consider it solid hardcore scifi and one of the few books I read this year writing by a guy. This book was more procedural, and I skimmed through some of the computer sci logic that I don’t really care about. There is some addressing emotions of the character, but the author put an emotion damper on the character, so he could be more logical and get through high stress situations. Once or twice that character would have an emotional response, but most of the time Bob was very logical. This book also felt like a set up book. There are two other books in the series that I’ll interlibrary loan through my library because I’d like to see what he’s done to his world. There are no audiobooks available, so I need to time it so I actually have some free time to sit and read it.
A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1) – Madeleine L’Engle
Way better than the movie and I have no idea why they tried to make this into a movie. The other books in the series are on my list and available in audiobooks.
The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfayer, #1) – Becky Chambers
Another scifi book, but compared to “We are Bob”, this one felt more warm. A ragtag team is on a long-distance voyage to punch a wormhole from one new planet to the other known ones. The team is filled with different species from humans to a lizard one to an AI. The author chose to use algae as the ship’s fuel source, which I think is a super smart decision. Each team member has a unique culture behind it. One of my favorite characters is Doctor Chief (he’s the crew’s doctor and chief). His species start as shes when they are younger and change to males as they get older. This isn’t so far fetch as there are fish on Earth that have this same scheme. Doctor Chief loves to cook and there is time spent in describing foods and comforts found in sharing a meal.
There are conflicts that inevitably happen (their algaeist is a dick, but he has an interesting twist happen), but are resolved with empathy. The captain and crew have a lot of emotional awareness, which was nice to read.
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Starr is a black girl living in a poorer neighborhood and she attends a white private school. She has to exist in two completely different worlds. Her dad was an ex-con and her mom in the medical field. She attends a party and ends up leaving with her childhood friend Khalil once shots are fired. They drive home, and Khalil is pulled over by a cop. The pull over is described in detail from Starr’s point of view. Something happens and the cop shoots Khalil multiple times.
We see how the shooting is perceived from Starr, to how the news media spins it and her response, to how her family and neighbors take it and her response, to how her white and Asian friends in the private school talk about it and her response. Like “I’ll Give You the Sun”, this was another book that was outside of my experience and understanding of the world. The book has examples of subtitle racism which are rather disheartening. Not an easy book to read at all, but still very good.
Lady Sherlock Series (#1 and #2) – Sherry Thomas
Let’s see... Tropes uses are Sherlock is a women and unreliable Watson. It was fun to read how the author reinterpreted the Sherlock Holmes persona. I’m waiting for the third book.
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
My first foray into Agatha Christie. It was fine and interesting. The parts that made no sense to me ended up being important plot points, so yah to me for seeing that. I think I need to read another before I make an opinion about her works. I have two other books in the que, so we’ll see.
Circe – Madeline Miller
The story focuses on Circe from her life with her father Helios to her exile on a deserted island. She grows during this time from a naive girl who thought she couldn’t do anything to someone who put fear in other greater gods. Yes, there is rape in the book, but it is not described. What is described is her response afterwards and turning the men to pigs.
This book is well researched and takes stories from multiple ancient sources (the author majored in Classics from different Ivy leagues, so hopefully the book would be well researched on that front!). The beginning I found a little dull since Circe whined a lot, but that was needed to show her eventual growth in understanding how the world works. Also, Greek mythology and the Greek gods are weird! I hadn’t realized HOW since I’m not that well versed in mythology. There is an overarching drive that the author touches upon frequently through the book.
Science!
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta Lacks suffered from a tumor of the cervics. She went to John Hopkins to have treatment. Before her treatments began, the doctors took a routine biopsy of the cancerous cells. Treatments went ok, but she ultimately died from the tumor and treatment. Her cells that were biopsied, however, flourished in cell culture and were the first cells that could be successfully cultured. Because of how well those cells grew, researchers were able to share these cells with other researchers and thus human cell culture and procedures were essentially started. These cells have helped develop vaccines, other medical treatments, and were even sent into space. Biotech companies have used these cells to grow other compounds and sell those compounds and the cells. In contrast, the Lacks family are poor and can barely afford medical care.
The author tells the story from the perspective of Henrietta Lacks and scientists. There are so many instances of poor communication of science to the Lacks family, which is infuriating. At that time, keeping the patient’s information secret wasn’t practice.
Example: a group of researchers wanted to analyze the Lacks family members and compare their findings to Henrietta Lack’s cells. They drew blood from the family and the family thought that they were getting a cancer screening test. They were not. When the author reached out to one of the researchers who performed tests on the family’s blood, the researcher did not agree and mentioned that they would still be interested in more samples from the family. I facepalmed after the last bit. Ugh.
In the spring semester I’m teaching mammalian cell culture. We are using hamster cells, and not human. I wonder how many of the techniques and concepts that I’ll be teaching are due directly to the HeLa cells? That part bothers me a little and something I need to figure out.
The Gene: An Intimate History – Siddhartha Mukherjee
He starts off by explaining his family and the prevalence of schizophrenia and bipolar. Using that as a basis, how do we know how a normal gene functions and how do we know that information? He starts back at Aristotle and Pythagoras and goes into the ‘future of the future’.
These are the stories I’ve grown up on as a scientist, thus the information is very familiar. That said, I do think it is approachable and well written. It was all the stories we use in intro bio, genetics, molecular genetics, ethics, etc. It’s like knowing the stories by heart, but then seeing a fresh take on them. Let’s take Mendel as a example. He is considered the father of genetics and determined that traits were passed down through generation through packets of information (later called genes). I’ve taken multiple classes that taught Mendel in various ways, read his (very dull) scientific paper, and even taught about him and his work. But this is the first time I was given the historical background and personality of the man. How his work was (wrongly) used as justification by the US to sterilize those considered of ‘inferior genetic stock’ and how that ‘success’ further influenced the Nazis. He spends a lot of time looking at the dark side of genetics and how it was used in eugenics. These parts were rather sobering to read. :(
The section on genetic screening brought up my personal struggle that I went through while pregnant. Do I want to have the fetus screened? What do I do with the information? How is this selection no different than the eugenics of before?
I loved this book. I need to purchase a copy of my own, so I can go through again and annotate it (I borrowed an audiobook from the library). I never really understood why we tell the particular stories that we do in our science classes until now. It has changed how I want to teach certain topics. There are topics that are written so clearly that it would be perfect for a class to read through. It was also interesting that some of the same sections that I feel are disjointed in genetic class lectures are the same sections that he ended up having to change his approach to telling the story. We use the same approach, but he fleshes it out way better.
While I can sing the praises of this book all day long, my husband is the opposite. The book is dense. I had him listen to 15 minutes of it. He yawned and started falling asleep. He wished for accounting and numbers and felt the info went over his head. In defense of the book, we were in one of the more complicated sections of linking genes to our personalities. Ah, well.
Did Not Finish
The Fifth Heart – Dan Simmons
Another Sherlock Holmes book set during the hiatus. I got about three chapters in and got annoyed with how Holmes was protrayed. I kept saying ‘not my Holmes’ and with that, I gave it up.
Mrs Sherlock Holmes – Brad Ricca
A history of a female detective known as Mrs Sherlock Holmes. Or so I thought it was. The book bounces between two cases, which is unnecessary and causes confusion. Remembering the details from one case after another dense case was difficult. I made it about 25% through the book and the detective who would later be known as Mrs Sherlock Holmes was not even introduced.
The hard copy of the book was sent back to the library. I need time and thought to devote to this book so I can keep track of the details. It was interesting from a historical perspective, but that was about it. Maybe I’ll try it during the summer.
Currently reading or next up:
Mortal Engines – Philip Reeve
Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding – Noel Kingsbury
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice or, On the Segregation of the Queen – Laurie R King
The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Agatha Christie
no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 05:24 pm (UTC)I still haven't figured out how to say his name. I heard it in the audiobook, attempt to say it, and then promptly forget it. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 05:28 pm (UTC)I usually say it PWAH-row.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 01:58 am (UTC)I’m surprised at how picky I’m being with Holmes books from well known authors. I’m even more impressed that fanfics get that character and Watson so much better.
I’m not very familiar with Poirot and I’m giving that series a try. I’d probably take a look at the TV series if I can find it for free somewhere. :)