Category: Science

Advance Review Copy, Fiction, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, Science, Translation

The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi, translated from the Chinese by Darryl Sterk

Wu Ming-Yi, the Taiwanese author of The Man With The Compound Eyes, sets out to prove that these days the truth is stranger than fiction.  He pulls from his background as an environmental activist to describes a world facing environmental disaster. A disaster that resembles current events so closely that readers don’t need to expend their imagination to buy into the premise.  The events of Ming-Yi’s novel … Continue reading The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi, translated from the Chinese by Darryl Sterk

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Advance Review Copy, Non-Fiction, Science

A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was an amazing man by the standards of any age. He was a physician, had a degree in law, spoke multiple languages, was a mathematician, translator, an officer of the church, administrator and governor of church lands, an economist and an astronomer.  With crude instruments (and no telescope) he observed the night sky.  And the data he collected told him that the … Continue reading A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel

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Advance Review Copy, History, Non-Fiction, Science

Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service by Mark Pendergrast

Mark Pendergrast’s book, now available in paperback, has a little bit of everything.  History, politics, adventure in distant lands, men & women putting themselves in harm’s way for the good of mankind, epidemics, outbreaks and (I know this is gross) lots of diarrhea.  It’s hard to know where to begin. Officers in the Epidemic Intelligence Service specialize in tracking diseases and epidemics, on the ground, … Continue reading Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service by Mark Pendergrast

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History, Non-Fiction, Science

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death & the World It Made by Norman F. Cantor

The hypothesis on which Norman F. Cantor bases his book – In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death & the World It Made – is sound. That the Black Plague swept across Europe and performed a kind of natural selection that set the course of history is indisputable. Cantor manages to also make it completely uninteresting. Almost immediately the book falls into a … Continue reading In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death & the World It Made by Norman F. Cantor

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Non-Fiction, Science

“Plan B” or Instructions for Gardener’s (Take Your Pick)

Blame it on the  zombie movies. For years I’ve collected survival books and worked on what I like to call “Plan B”.  Sure I thought this might be a tad unusual, or at least that I was in the minority, until I discovered Smiling at the Apocalypse on the blog Sweet Juniper. My people are out there. Frankly, I doubt that a few books will … Continue reading “Plan B” or Instructions for Gardener’s (Take Your Pick)

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