Sunday, July 17, 2011

21: On Life and Living: Konrad Lorenz in Conversation with Kurt Mündl, Konrad Lorenz

The editing is terrible. Why bother having Mündl's voice break in every few pages with a line or two? There's no need.

It's more Lorenz on animals, and that's always good. There are some good "deeper" insights: people not growing up in or near nature not appreciating its beauty and therefore not supporting or understanding conservation; small ecosystems collapsing and the inability to rebuild them; etc.

20: The Names of Things: A Passage in the Egyptian Desert, Susan Brind Morrow

It sets a fine mood, but the promised "etymological wonderment" is not there.

19: Galaxies: A Very Short Introduction, John Gribbin

Eh. Glosses over the science, yet manages to be boring and fails to entertain. Why bother?

All it does is whet the appetite for a good astronomy or cosmology text.

18: How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard, Penn Jillette and Mickey D. Lynn

Stories of a life of cheating (to various degrees) at poker.

Is it all a bluff? I don't know. It's entertaining, whether true or not.

17: The Last Problem, E. T. Bell

Yeah, fun.

Bell is sometimes funny and sometimes surprisingly judgmental. He's not the objective historian you expect— and therefore so much more entertaining to read.