Book Reviews

Death Comes For The Archbishop

GoodReads: 4 stars Published in 1927, "Death Comes For The Archbishop" feels like a much more recent novel. Writing in a beautiful, timeless style, Cather crafts a southwestern legend that reaches across time to touch our souls. The breadth and depth of emotion in this barely 200 page...

4-stars

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

GoodReads: 4 stars This is the hardest I've laughed for any book in my 2017 reading theme. "Higher Superstition" is a wickedly perceptive takedown of the absurdities of the "academic postmodern left" and their "perspectivist" critique of science. Gross and Levitt defend the epistemological...

3-stars

Science: The Endless Frontier

GoodReads: 3 stars "Science: The Endless Frontier" is a landmark in the history of American science because it launched the National Science Foundation. At FDR's request, Vannevar Bush wrote this report to lay out how science would be funded in the US after WWII. Bush's career - entrepreneur,...

5-stars

The Satanic Verses

GoodReads: 5 stars Surreally cynical, flamingly controversial, and surprisingly touching, Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" is a work of art. Structuring a frame narrative around the intersecting paths of two Indian actors as they flit between London and Bombay, Rushdie made me laugh, frown, ponder, and reflect as he...

5-stars

The Road

GoodReads: 5 stars There's a certain comfort to knowing that things can't get any worse. While McCarthy's "The Road" is undeniably bleak and occasionally disturbing, I was surprised to frequently find myself in a peaceful, semi-meditative mood as I progressed through the novel. No doubt part of this...

3-stars

The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It

GoodReads: 3 stars "The War on Science" does a good job of contextualizing the current science/politics debate but is unevenly written and methinks it smacks a bit too much of half-baked undergraduate political ranting. Otto's book gave me a better understanding of recent anti-science political history and...

3-stars

Making "Nature": The History of a Scientific Journal

GoodReads: 3 stars "Making 'Nature'" feels like half the book it could have been. Rather than settling for a rather dry exposition of the journal's history, Baldwin attempts to enliven the narrative by exploring some of Nature's biggest controversies. Yet her effort falls short because she is unwilling...

4-stars

The Remains of the Day

GoodReads: 4 stars Ishiguro gently seduces the reader by narrating "The Remains of the Day" from the unlikely perspective of a genteel English butler during early twentieth-century Britain. Nothing particularly dramatic or exciting happens, but the fastidiously professional Stevens gently pulls at our heartstrings in this restrained but...

1-star

Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

GoodReads: 1 star "Solve for Happy" is a condescending and lazy self-help book. While the premature death of his son is undeniably tragic, Gawdat loses my sympathy with his faux insights and patronizing tone. "Going back to one of my childhood interests, the theory of relativity..."...

crime

The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man

GoodReads: 5 stars There is a certain romance about master confidence men. The risk, the cleverness, and the nervous tension all combine to make the expert grifter the beloved subject of some of our culture's most treasured films and novels. In "The Big Con", University of Louisville professor...

3-stars

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

GoodReads: 3 stars A timely but excessively cranky book. Nichols' "The Death of Expertise" rails against the public's rejection of expert authority. Nichols' goal was to present the strongest possible case for his point of view - namely that democratic "equality", sloppy news-ertainment, coddled university students,...

3-stars

Shadow of the Wind

GoodReads: 3 stars I almost gave up on this book, but I'm glad I didn't. "The Shadow of the Wind" starts off as a dark, surreal fairy tale and eventually transforms into a gothic detective novel / tender love story. Very odd, but somehow it works. Ultimately though, this...

5-stars

Heart of Darkness

GoodReads: 5 stars The horror! The horror! Famed Shakespearean Kenneth Branagh's audiobook narration transports the listener to a hauntingly dark and surreal place. Quite first rate, that narration - this Branagh fellow will go far I do say. The Company has great hopes for him. Though Conrad's "Heart of...

4-stars

Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions

GoodReads: 4 stars "Rigor Mortis" explores how perverse incentives and a "broken" scientific culture are fueling the reproducibility crisis in modern biomedical research. Published in April, Harris's jeremiad was a perfect fit for my 2017 reading theme on "The Integrity of Western Science" and...

5-stars

The Day of the Jackal

GoodReads: 5 stars A masterpiece of the genre. "The Day of the Jackal" is an old-school spy thriller written with a pitch-perfect tone and style. I eagerly allowed myself to be swept away as Forysth's tightly-plotted novel came together with the beauty and precision of a meticulously constructed...