I’ve been reading at a faster clip now that I’m actually done with the Cannonball. Or at least, it feels like it. Maybe it’s because the pressure is off. This latest book comes courtesy of that old traveler’s standby, Hudson News. Even though I have about 20 unread books on my Kindle – including that bastard book five of A Song of Ice and Fire – I always wander into this newsstand/bookstore when I’m at the airport. This book caught my eye and I’m really […]
Gulp
Mary Roach’s Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal was something I’d seen on The Colbert Report and thought “huh that seems really interesting, I should read that.” But I know myself and I know that if it weren’t for my book club selecting it, I probably would still have it on my “to read” list. With Gulp, Roach seeks to explain how we eat, why we eat it, and what our body does with whatever we choose to consume. She does so with many humorous […]
But Sweets are SO YUMMY
Last week I purchased four books on sugar. Motivated by all the holiday sweets around, I remembered the last book I read last year – Good Calories, Bad Calories – and thought maybe I needed a bit of a refresher on nutrition. I searched for a few books, and I decided to start here. The book is heavily academic, and focuses mostly on the author’s own research. Although much of it describes scientific study, it isn’t hard to read. Dr. Yudkin is interested in the […]
Book 52 – What Matters in the End
“A colleague once told her, Wilson said, ‘We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love.’ That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail.” The above quote sums up beautifully much of what Dr. Gawande discusses in this really lovely, interesting and motivating book. Being Mortal focuses on how modern medicine has failed us in that it can keep people alive much longer than it used to, but often at a very serious cost. His focus is primarily on the elderly, […]
Would you lease your house to this species?
There are a lot of things going wrong in the world, but it is difficult to downplay the ecological crises we are currently witnessing. Repeated studies have been published describing a loss of biodiversity happening at a rate never seen before. Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History describes the extinctions that are occurring around us in the context of five major extinctions in Earth’s history. Unlike so many books about environmental crises, Kolbert stays even-keeled, with a journalist’s approach to describing what, why, […]
Made for Music
I have been a musician for thirty years. I sing and play a variety of instruments. I’m the kind of person who can pick up just about any instrument and have a basic capability to play within a few minutes. I have never felt like less of a musician than when I read this book. It’s not that it shows me to be technically insufficient but that he tells of a world of music which I can never hope to experience. As all of Sacks’ […]
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