Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Emily wrote up an excellent summary of the plot of Oryx and Crake in her review, here. I am not going to reiterate that, just give my impressions of the book.


It is a very powerful, well written story. The general theme seems to be a dire warning about where genetic modification and all that fun stuff might lead. As Emily mentions in her review, the story takes place in two settings... the time before a mysterious virus kills most of humanity and the period after. There is a single POV character in both periods, reminiscing about various events in his prior life, and sort of wandering around the setting complaining after the virus.

I was much more interested in the parts of the story focused on the time before. Until the last few chapters, I was waiting to find out just what had wiped out humanity, and where the POV character's friends Oryx and Crake were. It gave a lot of hints, but Atwood doesn't tell you exactly what happens until the very end of the book. I found myself significantly less interested in the parts of the story from after the disaster. The main character was just wandering around and complaining, I felt like. It didn't add a whole lot, just made me want to skip ahead to the parts about the world crashing and burning.

This book is described as about a love triangle. That is totally false advertising. There may in fact be a love triangle in the book, but it only exists in the last few chapters of the book and seems fairly contrived. Just to sort of maybe almost explain a certain event. Not really central to the story at all.

My main complaint about Oryx and Crake is that I was only ever emotionally attached to one character (Killer) who was both minor and killed off early. I found Jimmy/Snowman obnoxious, Oryx unlikely and contrived, and Crake just immensely unlikeable in general. Although not to the extent that I thought his ultimate contribution to the situation in the story seemed very plausible.

I am not sure how comfortable I am with Atwood's general anti-bioengineering message. I think there is valid progress that could be brought about through bioengineering! The chicken nobs, for example, seem like a good innovation! As a vegetarian, would I eat chicken that was grown on what were essentially plants that felt no pain and had no brains capable of suffering? Hell yes I would! I think that I would sign on to human organs being grown in pigs if it could save the life of someone I loved. I think a lot of valid progress is to be had through these avenues, and I took issue with the way Atwood treated these ideas as self-evidently bad.


The setting of Oryx and Crake seems to be devoid of both morality and a real government. It seemed like kind of corporate fascism/anarchy where money was power and freedom only existed for those with money. Obviously, in this fictional setting devoid of any ethics or oversight, corporations ran wild with bioengineering. But that seems realistically more of an argument for a strong, independent FDA than against the science of bioengineering.

So in all, this book is interesting and raises important questions, but is not without a significant bias, in my opinion. If you are already against bioengineering or whatever, you will probably appreciate it more than I did. I don't think the story was compelling enough to stand on its own as literature without the social commentary, and the social commentary was a little much for me. Not a bad book, and I enjoyed reading it, but it isn't something I would necessarily recommend to most people. Now I want to read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale again and see if I am as crazy about it now as I was in high school!

Spook by Mary Roach

Yay Mary Roach! She is always fun to read! Spook is subtitled "Science Tackles the Afterlife" and that pretty much sums it up. This book goes into all kinds of people looking into what happens to the mind/soul after death. The methods and topics range from bizarre to silly to genuinely scientific. Plausible explanations are given for all kinds of phenomena that people take as evidence of souls or ghosts. For example, electric fields and infra-sounds both can cause ghost-like hallucinations. Roach writes Spook with her characteristic humor and passion for science!


I think that Roach succeeds in offering an honest exploration of the science and pseudoscience of the afterlife, without being tendentious or biased. I went into the book with a higher degree of certainty regarding the so-called soul's demise at death than I left with, which really surprised me. Some of the legitimate researchers she interviewed definitely makes me think there could be more to the whole soul thing than I had thought! I am not saying this book suggests the existence of a typical, cloudy and harp-intensive heaven (if you go in thinking that you may be disappointed) but it does suggest that maybe some energy or something could exist that is not (yet) properly accounted for by science.


Mary Roach's excellent style can be summed up as a combination science-mindedness, great writing and humor. She interjects one or the other in frequently, and it really works for me. Her humor often uses a certain formula. Roach will note an amusing phrase, or a word used in a funny context in her interviews or research, and then shortly later refer to the phrase again in a slightly different context as if it were a normal thing to say. It cracks me up every time!

One problem I have with Roach's writing is her casual references to animal cruelty. She did this extensively in Stiff as well as in Spook. It diminishes my enjoyment of a book (or TV show, or movie...) to feel like I have to have my mental guard up against vivid images of disturbing things. I am sure the horrible ways in which pseudo-scientist researchers trying to measure souls killed little animals is important to the subject at hand, but I really, really could have done without it.

All in all, this is a great book. I wouldn't hesitate to suggest it to most adults. Probably not kids, because it has rather adult themes at times and it even disturbed me in places. I would suggest this book to my die-hard atheist friends, my religious friends, or my new-age mom. I even suggested it to my fiance who is very defensive of his idea of the afterlife! Whatever your perspective on the afterlife is, Mary Roach's humor, tact, use of science and research and disinterestedness is engaging, fascinating and fun! I can't wait to read her other books!

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

I am pretty sure this book changed my life when I read it the first time, a few years ago. Sagan makes a solid case for applying skepticism and rationality to our lives, and lays out the dangers inherent in relying on dogma, charisma, instinct and complacency.


I read this again for a monthly book club I have been going to, and my perspective has certainly changed. Maybe a better word would be evolved, or improved. Now, while I find the evidence in this book as interesting and compelling, the lessons seem pretty ingrained in my head already. But that's just where I am coming from.

This book goes into the science (or lack thereof) in the so-called alien encounters that pervade our culture. It probably comes as no surprise to the clever and educated readers of my blog that Sagan debunks the hell out of all of that. In an entertaining and engaging way, nonetheless! He takes it further by describing the disturbing parallels between this alien mania and the demon fears that seemed to have helped bring about literal witch hunting in the past.

It's amazing to me (yes, I am quite young) that a book written way back in 1996 can have such uncanny relevance today! Potential threats he mentions in Demon-Haunted World have certainly raised their ugly heads since this book was published. Notably, he warns about derivatives in finance and factors leading to 9/11. We haven't improved as a species or as a culture since 1996, and it remains unclear that we have improved ourselves much since accused witches were burned in America and Europe.

My biggest impression reading Demon-Haunted World was wishing that Carl Sagan was alive today. I know he would have interesting and useful things to say about contemporary issues that are incredibly troubling. What would he have said about the persecution of Julian Assange on contrived charges, and especially the attack against WikiLeaks? I wondered this when I read the following paragraph, on page 90 of my edition of Demon-Haunted World.

"Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is in the national interest. Further, military, political, and intelligence communities tend to value secrecy for its own sake. It's a way of silencing critics and evading responsibility - for incompetence or worse. It generates an elite, a band of brothers in whom the national confidence can be reliably vested, unlike the great mass of citizenry on whose behalf the information is presumably made secret in the first place. With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science."

Today I heard about an attempt to arrest a man for writing a book. I find this blatant censorship deeply disturbing, and instantly wondered what Sagan would have said about the whole issue.

This picture is from Wear Science Dot Com, which has the best T-shirts EVAR.
I have one fairly insignificant issue with this book, and because I am a nerd I feel the need to go into it extensively. There is an long section on the Manhattan project scientist, Edward Teller. (Incidentally Teller is the basis for the Dr. Stranglove character in the movie of the same name.) Carl Sagan really has it in for this guy. I am unconvinced that Sagan's anti Edward Teller mania is all that grounded in rationality! In college, I was curious about Teller, partially due to reading Demon-Haunted World the first time. I read several books on the guy and did a biographical paper/project (poster FTW) for a physics class. You can maybe build the case that Teller was a factor in the notorious US arms race, but Sagan goes way beyond that. He singles Teller of all the Manhattan Project scientists out, even quoting Jeremy Stone saying that Teller has done "more to imperil life on this planet than any other individual in our species." Wow. From my research, Teller's motivations were pure and good. He wanted to protect America and democracy, and was convinced that superior arms power was the way to do that. He never wanted his bombs used in war, and campaigned accordingly. He wanted them as a deterrent, through mutually assured destruction, or whatever. Granted, I didn't actually know the guy and Sagan apparently met him, but these sections in Demon-Haunted World are a personal attack based on who knows what, and are not a shining example of rationality and skepticism.

So this book. It's great. It basically describes pitfalls associated with a lack of skepticism. And has lot's of yay for science bits, and all that. It's a really fun read. I would especially recommend it for young minds. I think it would make an excellent high school graduation present, for example. I say yay science and YAY CARL SAGAN!

Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey

Do you ever have a book that takes you way longer to read than it should because you can't bear to finish it? Yeah, this book was like that. I wish it went on for another 1,000 pages. I would buy a sequel in a heartbeat!


Devil's Teeth is Susan Casey's story of her time spent on the Farallones Islands near San Francisco, studying sharks and gulls and all kinds of cool biology! She heard about the sanctuary and did everything in her power to spend as much time on the closely controlled island as she could. The islands' great attractions were the superhero-like biologists living there and the SHARKS! I never was crazy about sharks when I was a kid, I sort of stuck to obsessing over kitties and rats. But this book makes me think that great white sharks are pretty much the coolest thing ever. I can't even begin to describe the magic that Casey weaves into this book. You can't read it and NOT think that great whites are the coolest thing ever!


Casey writes about her exciting adventures on the islands in a humorous, self deprecating way, along with bits about the islands' history, current challenges and shark lore. It jumps back and fourth between fascinating great white anecdotes and Casey's trials and tribulations on the rugged island. There are definitely moments where I couldn't wait to read what happens to her next, and others where I laughed out loud. I am the biggest couch-potato, web-surfer ever and I was constantly torn between thinking it would be awesome to go to the islands despite the rough, camping-like experience and feeling like I would die in an hour! It ended on a really sad note, which makes me want to know what happened after it was published.

I can't recommend this book enough. I wasn't particularly interested in sharks or marine biology to begin with, much less knowledgeable about such things, and it was a super awesome reading experience for me. I can only assume it would be for most other people. I think it would be appropriate and awe-inspiring for younger readers as well.

Seriously, read the hell out of this book as soon as possible.

Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

Emily has already reviewed this book, and written a great summary of it here. I think I had a slightly different take on the book than she did, so this will definitely not be a repetition of what Emily already wrote! This review contains heavy spoilers because I feel like I have to get into the ending events of the book to review it to my satisfaction. Skip to the last paragraph if you don't want stuff given away!


Calculating God follows a Canadian paleontologist who I will refer to as Straw Man Atheist or SMA. SMA is one of the first humans to interact with aliens who visit earth to learn about the planet in their quest to make sense of the universe. SMA is an atheist, who reads like he was written by someone who has never spoken with an actual atheist. Most of what he believes is shallow, and his reasons for his beliefs are flawed. He doesn't read like an atheist would be, he reads like someone's characture of an atheist. He has beliefs he should be able to defend with good arguments, but lets them fall down like a house of cards when questioned. Hence, Straw Man Atheist.

I have an aversion to books that blend science and fiction in unclear ways with an apparent agenda. I know Emily probably will disagree, but I felt like this book had a very clear agenda in that everything turns out to be the work of a god and everything SMA believed turns out to be false. I am not super knowledgeable in physics, astronomy or biology, and the way that Calculating God was written sort of made the boundary between real science and what the author was making up unclear. To me at least. Maybe I am just ignorant though. I just felt like this book would be a very convincing argument for intelligent design, or the presence of an impersonal god, if you knew a little bit less about the science at stake than I do. That seems like a less than ethical way of doing fiction to me.

Being slightly educated in physics and biology, I was aware of several flaws in the evidence for god presented by the spider aliens to SMA. For example, it jumps on punctuated equilibria as creationists and intelligent design enthusiasts love to. Which is really, incredibly meaningless. Of course the fossil record is incomplete and jumpy, we are lucky anything gets preserved in the unlikely process of fossilization. Even if the earth had no fossils, there would be sufficient evidence for (not divinely guided) evolution within our genetics. Another flawed argument that is central to Calculating God is that because the fundamental constants of the universe are so dang perfect for human life, god must have caused them. It is certainly not clear that life couldn't be formed under different parameters. I recently read in a book or article (that I am struggling to find again...) that some scientists modeled different combinations of variables and found that if you varied different ones simultaneously you could get all kinds of suitable universes, in theory. For example if the fundamental constants are 1, 2, and 3 and say that for life to exist they have to sum to equal six, you might say that if you changed any one constant the universe would be unsuitable for life. BUT you could change two or three at once and still sum to six and be suitable, like changing them to 1, 1, and 4. All of the arguments for a god's existence in Calculating God that are based on reality and not the fictional worlds in the book's setting are ones that are easily refuted, and have been refuted soundly. By scientists, not fiction writers. Calculating God makes it seem like science needs a god-entity to have started the universe and bumped along evolution. Neither is true. Science does just fine without some entity having survived from a previous universe and set up ours, in reality.

One section in the book that made it abundantly clear what the author really thinks of atheists was when SMA and his alien friend were discussing morality and religion. SMA asks the alien how his or any race could have morality without god. So apparently even Sawyer's SMA thinks that there can be no morality without god. I, and the atheists I know, think otherwise. It seems clear that morality based on after-death rewards and punishments alone is no morality at all. If you are only good for the sake of getting rewarded after death, how is that morality? If the only thing that stops you from killing, raping and stealing is the assumption that such behavior will send you to hell, is that morality? Further, a quote from Steven Weinburg: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." The SMA character ceased to be believable when he said that morality had to come from god, and I lost any faith I had that Sawyer was unbiased.

Towards the end of the book, when the inhabited planets are nearly destroyed by a proximate supernova and then miraculously saved, the book got a lot less subtle. I found it strange that everyone leaped to the conclusion that life from another planet had caused (or accelerated) the 'nova and the god entity stopped it from killing the universe's sentient life. It seemed strange to me that the characters never even considered the (more obvious and plausible) explanation that the star went 'nova because that's just what stars do and it was the aliens who stopped it. You can't tell me that it's impossible for the aliens to have blocked the supernova if you are assuming it's ok for them to have freaking caused it!!

The end of the book was less interesting, because it was written hurriedly and at a high level, but it also made me a lot less uncomfortable because it was clearly based on fiction rather than something science has actually dealt with. It was really nice that there was a reason for cancer after all, and that all of what the (non-SMA) characters believed all along was true.

This book is interesting and thought provoking. It did make me think about my assumptions about the world, but certainly not change them. I found most of the discussions between the main characters to be interesting. My main complaint is just that the author has an agenda and uses what I consider to be dirty fictional tricks to push it. I don't know that I would necessarily recommend this book because of its agenda and the aspects that frustrated me about it, but I did more or less enjoy reading it.

Irreligion by John Allen Paulos

Irreligion is purported to be a summary of "why the arguments for god just don't add up" according to its cover. This is a fairly accurate summary of what the book contains.I bought this book because I had read a few of John Allen Paulos' columns and was entertained by him. The topic of Irreligion seemed interesting to me, and the book wasn't very expensive, long or intimidating.


I need to stop buying and reading books about atheism. Once you have read one, you have read them all. (I recommend "The God Delusion" as the best of the bunch) Richard Dawkins approaches atheism and religion through biology, Sam Harris through brain science, and Hitchens through philosophy and literature, for example. Paulos does it through statistics. I thought this would be a unique approach, but it somehow was not.

Irreligion is rebuttals to several (not new) arguments for the existence of god. The majority of the book is stuff I have read elsewhere. It is a nice (short, easy) summary of this stuff for people who haven't read all about it previously, but fails to say much new stuff. Most of it isn't even based on statistics, as touted. More logicy, proofy stuff. Meh.

Paulos does have one other thing going for him, as an atheist writer. He has tact. His arguments are very friendly and approachable, not condescending or sarcastic. I have heard some people are put off my the causticity of Dawkins and Harris. If so, Paulos might be your guy!

I would recommend this book to either someone who just can't get enough pro-atheist books, or to someone who was slightly curious about it but didn't want to commit to a longer, more intense (or insulting) book. I am sure Irreligion has its place in the atheism book ecosystem, but I personally didn't get a ton from it. To most people I would recommend The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins over Irreligion.

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

The Moral Landscape is Sam Harris' explanation of why science has useful and relevant things to say about morality. I tend to agree with this position, so it is hard to separate myself and imagine what this book would be like to someone who believes that morality can only come from religion.


It is important to note that Harris defines "science" in this context not as what men in white lab coats do, but in general as scientific thought applied to all kinds of fields including biology, psychology, economics... all that. His claim is that even if we don't always know how to maximize happiness and minimize suffering, there are scientific ways to look at it and these are more valid than a morality based on dogma alone.

Another important note is that Harris' is not claiming science can, at this time, definitively answer all the questions of this nature. We may eventually get there, or not. The important thing is that we try, and try to base our morality on what we know to be true about the world.

I feel like I explained this poorly. I guess an example might be contraceptives. Some people base their views on contraceptives on the pope's stance, or their church's stance, or what they assume to be the bible's stance. Others may base their views on human happiness and suffering. These different bases might lead to very different opinions regarding condom distribution and education in Africa, say. Whether or not condom use is punished after death, it seems clear that more and better condom use in Africa could reduce human suffering here on planet earth.

Harris fleshes out The Moral Landscape with examples and bits of evidence from various fields of research as diverse as brain scanning and psychological tests of animals. Some of these examples are the most interesting parts of the book in my opinion.

I think this is a very useful and interesting book. I would recommend it to anyone at all interested in morality or ethics, and I would be very interested to hear what people who disagreed with the book's premise thought about it.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I don't know what I was expecting from this book, other than I knew it was popular and the premise sounded interesting. It is not really the kind of thing I normally read, but I liked it more or less.


My Sister's Keeper is about a 13 year old girl, Anna, who was conceived using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to be a donor match for her sister, who has had leukemia since age two. The book is mostly about Anna's legal attempt to get medical emancipation from her parents, because she claims they are failing to make decisions based on her best interest. She is frustrated because her entire life has been defined by donating marrow and other bits of her body to her sister.

The book is written from several perspectives including that of Anna, her delinquent brother, each of her parents, and others involved in her case. The tone and voice for each is all pretty much the same, and the stories of the point of view characters are too intertwined for this to be a really effective narration style, in my opinion. Plus, they change the font for different characters. Distracting much?

The book does not add much-needed depth to Anna or her family. They all seem pretty much one-dimensional, with the possible exception of her mother who vacillates between incredibly callous and mean to a perfectly normal sounding mother. Other characters' personalities are not very well fleshed out. I think writing from the perspective of a 13 year old must be remarkably challenging. Picoult fails by making her sound alternately like an incredibly thoughtful adult and really, really juvenile.

All of the characters go back and forth between the present-day trial to random reflections on their past. There are countless recollections from Anna and her brother that boil down to something like "when I was 10 my parents forgot about me because all they care about is my sister's leukemia." Or something. It was annoying when things were actually happening in the book to be switching between the present and past and between characters. It made it seem like Picoult was being paid by the word. Or maybe by the analogy. The characters all provided enough cheesy analogies and shallow metaphors that the only reasonable explanation is Picoult got paid a bonus for each one!

Considering the premise of the book, one gaping hole was the lack of any explanation of the relationship between Anna and her sister. It was almost never mentioned, except "Kate wouldn't let me choose the music we listened to" type complaints from Anna. After finishing the book, I feel like their relationship was left out in an attempt to mislead the reader about the nature of the relationship, leading up to a pair of remarkably contrived twists towards the end of the book.

One of those twists is pretty much the biggest trope of a way to end a story ever. I don't want to completely give it away, but it sucks. The ending of this book sucks balls.

This book was frustrating in several ways but what ultimately redeems it is its study of modern medicine's morality and the contradictions and conundrums it can cause. I am sure there are better fiction and nonfiction takes on this issue, but this books has its own perspective that adds some value. It definitely has me thinking about depressing things like leukemia and organ donation!

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Towers of Midnight is book 13 in my all time super-favorite fantasy series, called the Wheel of Time. If you don't follow epic fantasy, and/or have been under a rock for a few years, the original author, Robert Jordan, died before completing the series and chose Brandon Sanderson to finish it for him. There is one more book after this (January 2012 expected release date) and the whole series is done. That will be a sad day for Wheel of Time nerds like me!


I will avoid spoilers, except to the extent that I bring up characters' names as part of Towers of Midnight.

I think that Sanderson is doing an admirable job of continuing Jordan's incredible story and intricate world. I can't even imagine all the research and reading and re-reading Sanderson must have done to maintain Jordan's style so well. It really feels like the same guy wrote it all. I didn't think it would be possible for the series to be finished in an acceptable manner when Jordan died, but I was apparently wrong.

Sanderson is very good at writing clever, natural sounding dialogue. For that or some other reason, there were a lot of borderline-snarky conversations in this book. It seems to me like Jordan's books were not very dialogue-intensive so this is one way the styles of the authors diverge. I can't decide how I feel about that. On the one hand, it's generally amusing, well written and engaging, but on the other hand I feel like it's not how Jordan would have written it or how the earlier Wheel of Time books were written. It's hard to say if it's an improvement or a distraction. Maybe it's both.

Sanderson actually manages to improve a few characters that were among my least favorite points of view previously. Notably, Nynaeve doesn't have much screen time but seems to gain depth, and become a more interesting and intriguing character. Galad becomes really, really cool. I never thought he had much potential to be an awesome character, previously. Perrin and Faile are the focus of Towers of Midnight, and are surprisingly tolerable. Yes, even Faile. Weird, right?

That brings me to my major problem with Sanderson's take on Wheel of Time. Mat. Sanderson is ruining my favorite character. Maybe I missed the part in Jordan's writing (across my 2 - 4 readings of the series...) where Mat suffered EXTENSIVE BRAIN DAMAGE. Sanderson makes Mat really, really stupid, cocky, and unlikeable. Egregious misspellings in a letter? Was it really necessary to do that? It doesn't make any sense for someone in Mat's position, with his (spoiler intensive) skills to be that stupid. That was my only major problem with the book. I had a problem with Sanderson's take on a few other characters, but nothing big except poor, lobotomized Mat. Jeez.

If you like epic fantasy, I can't recommend this series highly enough. The world, cultures, people and plot are incredibly intricate and deep. If you, like so many others (including you guys, Emily and Bret) stopped reading halfway through because things slow down around book 7 or 8 I strongly suggest you try again. The more times I read the series the more I get out of it, and it *does* pick up again in book 9 or 10. Plus, now there is an end in sight with book 14 expected to come out in January 2012.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

This is the third and final book in Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games series. The first was The Hunger Games, and the second was Catching Fire.


This book failed to blow my mind like The Hunger Games did. It was a solid conclusion to the trilogy, and took the reader to new, if largely expected, places. It wrapped up everything that needed wrapped up and was largely satisfying, but was not even close to as awesome as The Hunger Games was. Too bad.

Collins impressed me in this book with the horrible things she did to certain characters that seemed sacred and untouched before. Really bad stuff happens, people change, and characters really develop fully. Peeta especially has a really, really interesting development that sort of defines the book for me. And Buttercup. But I am a sucker for cats. I cried my brains out during one of Buttercup's scenes.

I felt like the Coin plotline was really contrived and/or confusing. You never really got a sense of what she was actually doing. Katniss didn't even seem to know what was going on with Coin ever, even at the end when Katniss acted rather decisively on some really questionable information about Coin. I felt like Collins really should have told us outright whether or not Coin had... done the things... but I was really unsure about that! It would have been nice to know whether the intrigue Katniss was acting on was real or imagined.

I would still recommend the series, but if you read the first book and don't feel like you need to know what happens next more power to you. The first book is orders of magnitude better than the rest of the series.

Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Emily already reviewed this book, and wrote a great summary and introduction here, which I am not going to try to replicate. I really can't improve on Emily's review so I am just going to rant inanely about how the book made me feel.


I discovered that I really don't like reading about how I should live my life differently. I get it, my priorities are less than ideal. I am not going to change my life to one of service, I am not going to go teach in Africa, I am probably not even to forgo buying the designer handbags so despised by Kristof and WuDunn. I don't care what the context, position, or arguments are: anything trying to get me to do anything will be met with resistance. This book was really raised my defenses.

Don't get me wrong, I was profoundly disturbed by the anecdotes and statistics. It makes me grateful to be a middle class American, and really angry about all the crap that people do to each other. I am not averse to supporting these causes, but to be honest I will probably keep donating to and volunteering with my favorite animal shelter because it's more rewarding. Maybe I just can't face rape victims and whatnot in a personal way.

More about the profoundly disturbing stories. Reading some parts of this book literally induced panic in my brain. It is really horrifying. The stories that Kristof and WuDunn go into are just too awful for words. I am sure I am not going to be forgetting images from this book any time soon. This is not a book for kids. It's all true stuff, and at some level I suppose it's important for everyone to be aware of their world, but I would not suggest this book to a sensitive person or a child.

In summary, if you want to be motivated to hate people and maybe donate some money (and you think you are more amenable to such suggestions than I am...) you might enjoy this book. If you just don't like being told what to do, read something else!

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

This is the sequel to The Hunger Games, and compared to the first book it was very disappointing. It was still good, but Hunger Games was stellar and good when you are expecting stellar is disappointing.


Too much of Catching Fire was devoted to that old, comfortable teen romance routine, e.g., "oh no, two boys love me and I am sort of in love with both of them, and I don't know what I really want but I refuse to actually talk to anyone about what I am feeling." Really lame. A lot of Catching Fire is, unfortunately, devoted to Katniss bellyaching in her head about her relationships with Gale and Peeta. This was extremely repetitive and boring.

The writing in this book was the same as in Hunger Games: first person, present tense. This is awesome in the more action packed parts of the book, but just weird when Katniss is worrying about hurting people's feelings for endless pages or speculating about what may or may not happen eventually. First person present tense does not lend itself to introspection well, it turns out.

Don't get me wrong, there are good parts of this book. It really picks up about 60% of the way through and is as exciting and engaging as Hunger Games, if not as original. A few of the peripheral characters became more interesting, and there were a ton of unexpected twists and turns. You can't help empathizing with Katniss and her friends in this book. The setting is so cruel and heartless to them that I definitely choked up once or twice.

I am not sure that this book should exist. Hunger Games was amazing, and the third book (Mockingjay) promises to take the reader to very interesting places, but Catching Fire couldn't decide if it was setting up the third book or rehashing the first. Literally, when it wasn't setting up stuff that didn't even begin to happen in this book, remarkably similar things were happening to the first book. It's pretty much like if there was a sequel to "Titanic" where Rose took another cruise where the boat crashed into an iceberg. Oh, and half the movie would be devoted to her discussing her feelings. So maybe the plot of Catching Fire could have been abbreviated and stuck in "Mockingjay." Or not. We'll see.

I hesitate to recommend or disparage this book too much before I read "Mockingjay" since how much I like the third book will determine my feelings on the series as a whole. Stay tuned for that!

Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham

...not to be confused with the sequel to Hunger Games which is, incidentally, my next book to read!


This book makes the claim that the ability to cook our food is what allowed humans to evolve. It starts out by disparaging raw food enthusiasts, who attempt to survive without cooking anything. Wrangham describes how the human body is evolved to thrive on cooked food and starve to some extent on only raw food, and how dietary changes towards cooked food may have allowed our wonderful brains to develop. Catching Fire also describes how early cooking might have begun, and affected human culture. And that's about it.

I was sort of disappointed by this book. I think it is hard to make studies of human evolution boring, but this book just almost succeeded. The ideas were interesting but the writing was dull and the organization of the book was repetitive. Wrangham's claims are backed up by a few modern diet studies, lots of anecdotes about extant hunter-gatherer cultures, and observations about the behavior of non-human primates. So it felt like it was all claim, anecdotes, summary, claim, anecdotes, summary... It read repetitively. Maybe the subject matter is better suited to a paper or article than a complete book.

I was happy that Catching Fire wasn't anti-vegetarian! I know that some scientists argue that it was our ancestors' ability and inclination to kill other animals for food that caused intelligence to evolve. I am not claiming that that hypothesis is wrong or right, but as a vegetarian it makes me irrationally sad. Wrangham made it clear that vegetarian or carnivore diets alike are made more efficient by cooking food, and either (or, probably, a combination) could have initiated our divergence from stupid primates.

Wrangham attributes certain ubiquitous aspects of human culture to food cooking. He posits that cooking led to marriage, the dominance of men over women, and traditional gender roles. I am not entirely convinced of all of Wrangham's ideas in Catching Fire, but they are definitely intriguing and seem as plausible as anything else I am aware of.

I am definitely not sorry I read Catching Fire. It is full of interesting ideas and descriptions of fascinating research. It's just written in a boring manner. Fortunately it's a quick read! Part of the way through, I was pleased to notice that almost half of the book was end-notes. It made it go way faster!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I was so prepared to be disappointed by this book because of its recent hype and popularity but I was completely not disappointed! This is one of the best books I have read in a while. I got so caught up in the story I read it in about 48 hours. It actually deserves its popularity, unlike some books I could mention.


The Hunger Games is set in a dystopia that used to be North America. Their are several districts which are subjugated by the capital. People in the capital enjoy wealth while those in the districts starve and generally have pretty terrible lives. To flaunt its power over the districts, each year the capital takes a boy and a girl from each district and forces them all to fight to the death in a televised game. The story follows Katniss, one of the best heroines in any book I have ever read. She is the provider for her mother and sister, and actually grounded and mature, unlike most girls portrayed in fiction. The Hunger Games is not about her feelings usually, but when Katniss talks about her feelings and all that she actually sounds like a real person! The book isn't a series of her poor decisions. She is a badass. I don't want to give away any more of the plot, because it is super awesome and everyone should read this book.

The Hunger Games is written in first person, present tense, e.g.: "I roll an unfamiliar berry in my fingers." It was distracting for about three pages, then I stopped noticing and it seemed natural with the fast paced, immediate nature of the story. I am not sure I have ever read a book written in such a way, but it somehow worked really well.

I was a little worried that, despite being a young adult book, The Hunger Games would be disturbing and violent given the setting. It really wasn't! Remarkably, even though the book was about teenagers having to kill each other it was very tasteful and not disturbing. I appreciated the complete absence of any sexual violence.

There are so many aspects of this book that blew me away. I feel like I can't go into all the things I loved about this book without giving a lot away, but just know it totally rocked my world. I can't wait to get a hold of its sequels. I am so glad I waited to read this book until the entire trilogy was published... I would hate to have to wait to finish the series. I am definitely going to pick up the second and third books ASAP. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who likes adventure stories, dystopian settings, female heroes, young adult books... It's really an amazing book!

Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane

Riding Rockets is the memoirs of shuttle era astronaut, Mike Mullane. He completed three shuttle missions with NASA before retirement. This book describes his early life (driving him towards space) as well as adventures within NASA. This book will disabuse you of any idealistic misconceptions about the nature of astronauts. Similarly, Mullane disparages NASA's leadership and culture. You may finish this book with lessened faith in NASA's leadership.


A great deal of this book is devoted to Mullane's sense of humor, apparently shared by most other astronauts. They were rather crude, sexist, and hilarious. Lots of pranks and jokes. Most parts of this book were interspersed with his observations about the sexism in other astronauts, and his own waxing and waning sexism. I found it entertaining, but I found their sexism a little disappointing. I know, it's silly. But when you have heroes you want them to be perfect and heroic, right?

This book was strangely religious, although it had nothing to do with religion. Mullane is a Catholic, and the entire book was sort of written through a lens of Catholicism. It was all praying for this, and thanking god for that. It was very casual and not tendentious which I appreciated. Maybe I need to read more memoirs and autobiographies, because it seems really strange to me when religion is permeating a completely non-religious book! I guess it makes sense, that as a religious person he would write about his experiences in terms of religion.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in space or NASA. It really is an edifying book about NASA's culture. Very entertaining and insightful. It was a fast, fun read.