false 10 158 135 true 5626272 read 9 true 92239 currently-reading 14 true 92238 to-read 53 false 4180358 2009 47 false 1505356 2008 40 false 1354067 2007 33 false 110010 childrens 30 false 3192255 asimov 24 false 92242 general-science 19 false 168613 science-fiction 16 false 93067 humor 14 false 168614 fantasy 13 false 5097422 richard-scarry 10 false 93876 world-war-ii 10 false 143489 general-nonfiction 8 false 1465379 skepticism 7 false 348444 general-history 7 false 3720743 young-adult 7 false 2524319 math-and-stats 7 false 1515399 astronomy 7 false 1515397 biology 4 false 215475 biography 3 false 94670 general-fiction 3 false 159628 apollo 3 false 4914196 nuclear-weapons http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11224144 The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 19191945 (Paperback) by Richard Steigmann-Gall
bookshelves: currently-reading, world-war-ii
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55527763 to: Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (Lucky Starr, #3) by Isaac Asimov
bookshelves: 2009, asimov, science-fiction, young-adult
The world of Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr is a young science geek's wildest dream come true. Imagine: a thousand years from now, the solar system's secret agents and protectors of the weak are...scientists! —Who don't mind showing off what they know!

Dr. Asimov often lamented the pernicious and ever-growing current of anti-intellectualism in American society. Was his series of young-adult Lucky Starr novels merely the public expression of an escapist fantasy universe, or did he intend to win young, intelligent minds to scientific inquiry by showing just how cool science could be?

For his third adventure, Council of Science hero Lucky Starr turns to the ocean planet of Venus, lured by mysterious and contradictory messages from a fellow Councilman turned criminal. There he encounters Venus's strange, telepathic inhabitants, who seem to have taken a particular dislike to human invasion of their watery world.

This episode is definitely my favorite in the series, although the tales of Jupiter and Saturn follow not too distantly. The storyline is compelling, but takes a back seat to Dr. Asimov's Venerean biology: bizarre, alien and fascinating, even to a Ph.D. scientist. Paradoxically, the most inventive of extraterrestrial settings in the Lucky Starr series is also the least accurate, scientifically: the real surface of Venus is dry, pitch-dark and far too hot for carbon-based life. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55527750 to: Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids Book 1 (Mass Market Paperback) by Isaac Asimov
bookshelves: 2009, asimov, science-fiction, young-adult
The world of Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr is a young science geek's wildest dream come true. Imagine: a thousand years from now, the solar system's secret agents and protectors of the weak are...scientists! —Who don't mind showing off what they know!

Dr. Asimov often lamented the pernicious and ever-growing current of anti-intellectualism in American society. Was his series of young-adult Lucky Starr novels merely the public expression of an escapist fantasy universe, or did he intend to win young, intelligent minds to scientific inquiry by showing just how cool science could be?

Flush with victory against a criminal cabal on Mars, Lucky Starr next takes on the ruthless pirates of the asteroid belt, with nearly fatal consequences. To me, this story is by far the weakest of the Lucky Starr series. The hero takes too many unnecessary, not to mention stupid, risks, and worms his way out of deadly situations too implausibly. These flaws are mitigated, however, by the harrowing dash across the Solar System—almost through the Sun!—at the end. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55527686 to: David Starr, Space Ranger (Lucky Starr, #1) by Isaac Asimov
bookshelves: 2009, asimov, science-fiction, young-adult
The world of Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr is a young science geek's wildest dream come true. Imagine: a thousand years from now, the solar system's secret agents and protectors of the weak are...scientists! —Who don't mind showing off what they know!

Dr. Asimov often lamented the pernicious and ever-growing current of anti-intellectualism in American society. Was his series of young-adult Lucky Starr novels merely the public expression of an escapist fantasy universe, or did he intend to win young, intelligent minds to scientific inquiry by showing just how cool science could be?

In the first installment, young David Starr, newly inducted into the Council of Science, goes undercover to root out a mysterious and deadly conspiracy to hold Earth's food supply hostage. He meets and befriends spunky Martian John Bigman Jones, who quickly becomes his faithful, if not even-tempered, sidekick. This initial novel puts the Lucky Starr universe on a sound footing. The embedded mystery is compelling, although its resolution is (in my opinion) a little too simplistic to be completely convincing.

As one would expect, Dr. Asimov took pains to ensure that the Solar System providing the backdrop for Starr's adventures was consistent with contemporary knowledge of astronomy. However, it seems that every one of the Lucky Starr stories (except perhaps the second) contains at least one glaring anachronism, which the author lived to regret. In David Starr Space Ranger, the famous Martian canals, now known not to exist, featured prominently. Moreover, the Martian atmosphere in the story was thick enough to allow breathing with simple oxygen masks, whereas in actuality it is only about one percent of sea-level pressure on Earth. Mind you, these inaccuracies did nothing to lessen my enjoyment of the Lucky Starr tales, either in my youth or at the present time.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57306430 Richard Scarry's Great Big Air Book (Hardcover) by Richard Scarry
bookshelves: 2009, childrens, currently-reading, richard-scarry
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54697462 to: A Brief History of Time (Paperback) by Stephen W. Hawking
bookshelves: 2009, astronomy
Sophisticated, yet accessible to the intelligent layperson, A Brief History of Time is an excellent nontechnical introduction to the history and structure of the universe, with emphasis on general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the Big Bang, and string theory. The centerpiece of the Brief History is, of course, Hawking's own discovery that energy might be able to escape from black holes after all, as Hawking radiation. Read it twice: you'll take away quite a bit more on the second reading. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54061262 to: Face to Face with the Bomb: Nuclear Reality after the Cold War (Hardcover) by Paul Shambroom
bookshelves: 2009, nuclear-weapons
Face to Face with the Bomb is a stunning pictorial documentary of America's nuclear weapons, their delivery systems and the command and detection systems that control them. Over a full decade, photographer Paul Shambroom negotiated with military authorities to gain access to US airfields, submarine bases, missile silos and command centers to compile this surprisingly revealing view. Shambroom is neither a critic or advocate of nuclear weapons: he was driven by the desire to "halp people believe that they are real, and to help people see through the abstract haze of policy debate and think about them in concrete terms." This book is a visually arresting and informative look into the American nuclear arsenal. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76179333 to: Protector (Paperback) by Larry Niven
bookshelves: 2009, science-fiction
My favorite Larry Niven work, and my second favorite science fiction novel of all time (after The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress). Niven somehow makes a very unlikely story of human origins perfectly plausible, and a seven-year-long space battle against unseen enemies utterly riveting. I've read this book about two dozen times, and I still pick up details I've missed. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74140873 to: The Mythology of North America (Paperback) by John Bierhorst
bookshelves: 2009, general-nonfiction
I picked up this book because I am interested in creation myths, but know very little about any apart from Genesis. John Bierhorst's survey of the interrelated myths and creation stories of the major North American Native groups is straightforward and academic—my wife read it for a graduate anthropology class—but is potentially useful to anyone who wishes to explore Native American mythology as art and literature, as it serves as a kind of card catalog for the common stories and their variations across large regions of the continent and among individual tribes. Certain themes (such as an age when animals were mostly human) and characters (like Raven and the trickster, Coyote) are almost universal, but the sacred stories of every tribe are personalized to explain the origin of each clan and ritual.

This volume is not recommended for anyone looking for captivating storytelling—but this overview may help you choose from a rich and diverse treasury of ancient (and a few modern) explanations for how the Earth, the plants and animals, and ourselves came to be. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65092079 to: The Clock We Live On (Hardcover) by Isaac Asimov
bookshelves: 2009, asimov, general-science
A fascinating and informative history of how we measure time. In typically clear and insightful prose, Dr. Asimov recounts the origins of our 24-hour day and Gregorian calendar, and shows how both are firmly rooted in the motions of the Earth in the heavens. ]]>