Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 3
August 9, 2025
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’m generally a fan of Michael Crichton, but I wasn’t impressed with this one. The story line involves a cabal of environmentalists who are portrayed as evil ignoramuses trying to convince governments to give them vast sums by pushing a false narrative about global warming and, oh by the way, murdering people and trying to cause global environmental catastrophes to bolster fund-raising. The author’s extensive end notes state that he is skeptical of people on both sides, pretty much landing on the notion that no one really understands much about the environment and how to manage, must less control, it. Despite this disclaimer, he portrays anyone working to clean up the air or preserve nature as either greedy, stupid, or evil, or maybe all three, while the good guys who are saving the world from the murderous cabal all know that global warming is not caused by greenhouse gases if it exists at all, that preserving open spaces is pointless or harmful, and so on. The book was much too didactic to be very entertaining no matter what your feelings are about global warming. The characters are one-dimensional, the action scenes preposterously implausible, and the constant lectures just too boring. Still, it was readable and kept me going for a few days. I also agree with one of his main points, and that is that activists, politicians, and media people all seek attention to their views, cause, or business by trying to cause fear and that false fear is not only unwarranted but also making people unhappy for no reason.
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August 4, 2025
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a well-written, intriguing murder mystery. Or is it? I ask because it appears to be a murder mystery at first, but really it’s about the disappearance of two children, “Bear” Van Laar who disappeared in in 1961 and then his teenage younger sister Barbara in 1975. The Van Laars are a wealthy family of snooty New York bankers who own an estate in a nature preserve including an upscale summer camp for kids. Bear’s body was never found, but a local firefighter who had befriended him, and then died of a heart attack right after the boy went missing, was blamed and murder was assumed. Barbara, now a teen in 1975 – the setting of the book’s “current day” – has decided to attend the camp her family owns. She thrives at the camp, but kids and counselors alike are sneaking around, drinking, having romantic encounters, and smoking pot. Fighting and much ado follow and Barbara disappears. The state police are soon called in and Judyta “Judy”, a rookie investigator, becomes the investigative focus of the book. She makes some significant investigative finds that others overlooked or at least didn’t think of.
It’s a long book (over 500 pages) with a long list of characters, too many to set forth here. I printed a paper list when I was 1/3 of the way through with 14 names on it, then had to add a half dozen more later. They all come into play, so don’t skip over any of them as minor. Have some patience because the pace is a bit slow at first, but it’s worth it. It jumps back in forth in time as is the current fashion, but I really appreciated how every chapter, even subsections, are marked in bold print with the year/day of that section as well as the name of main character followed there. I recommend the book. It gave me many hours of entertainment.
That said, I have one significant criticism. The book is ridiculously sexist, portraying almost every male and many women, too, as condescending sexist pigs especially toward Judy but toward other women and girls, too. The author is guilty of exactly what she portrays the men as doing only in reverse. I’m familiar enough with the publishing industry to know that 80% or so of non-fiction book buyers are female so portraying men badly sells books, but this one is comically inaccurate and very unfair. I was in the FBI in 1975 and worked with both male and female agents, local police too, in three states, including New York. Never once then or after did I ever hear an officer, agent, or civilian call a woman agent/officer “Honey” or “Dear” or anything similar as happens in the book. Never did I see an interviewee just walk away from one mid-interview, either. If the author objects to how the men treat Judy as a helpless little girl, then maybe she shouldn’t make Judy behave like one. Judy chickens out when she hears footsteps upstairs and runs to get some men cops to help her investigate. Jeez, she’s 26, has a gun and years as a state trooper. Any investigator I ever worked with would have gone up herself gun drawn. She is often described as afraid, nervous, or embarrassed. Both her partner, Hayes, and the captain from Albany publicly praise her good work often and give her significant leads to cover, but at the end she says something to the effect that every investigator she ever met treated her like she couldn’t make a good investigator because she was a woman. Judy is the one who acts biased.
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July 26, 2025
Playlist update for July 26, 2025
I like to share my playlist updates both to keep a record for myself and to let anyone interested be exposed to a wide range of music. This new set includes some classical pieces, a Norwegian Children’s song, and some vintage early jazz stuff. I replaced one version of Tico Tico with a better version.
Here the list of adds:
SONGARTISTAlong The Navajo TrailTom HallBoogie BearTom HallChristmas Is Blue Without YouMy Dear CompanionEine Kleine NachtmusikMary CarpenterFeel it StillPostmodern JukeboxGet Used to the BluesCarl Sonny LeylandHopp Og SprettStorm BarnesangerIn The Hall Of The Mountain KingBamberger PhilharmonicJelly RollThe Hot SardinesJosieEd McCurdyKey to the HighwayJackie DeShannonMy Trains Comin InBettye LavetteRock BoogieAdriano GrinebergTico Tico MedleyCaroline DahlToccata And Fugue In D MinorFrancois TetazI also removed some songs from my current playlists, although I did not delete them. In some cases I left them in one playlist but not others. Songs often disappear from my playlists but reappear after some months or years. Here’s that list (some names shortened):
Barbara Ann
Between the Devil
Carle Boogie
Head Rag Hop
I feel Good
I’m Walkin
Moonlight Boogie
Mr Freddy Blues
My old man
Pierre’s Blues
Powderhouse Rag
Pratt City Blues
Rag Mama
Ragtime without shot
Red Wing
Rock That Boogie
Sammy Price
Shirt Tail Stomp
St. Louis Boogie
Street Corner Rag
The Ma Grinder
Tico Tico
Tim Sparks Mississippi Blues/Carolina
Travelin Shoes
Vitality Rag
Walk Don’t Run
Warm Baby
When I go Walkin
Wipeout
Yes Sir That’s My Baby
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July 24, 2025
A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhurst
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The author deftly tells the true story of a British couple who sold off their earthly possessions to buy a yacht and sail to New Zealand to start a new life. Before reaching their destination a whale surfaces under their boat, sinking it. They grab what they can and move to a life raft and dinghy to await rescue. But they have no radio or other way to contact anyone. Their flares are all duds. This tale is page-turning fun to read and rates five stars, but ultimately makes for a rather short book. The author, perhaps encouraged by her editor, chooses to carry the story on past that event. Inevitably the rest is anticlimactic and drags my rating down. Still, I enjoyed the book and was amazed at the courage and resourcefulness the couple displayed.
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July 20, 2025
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Michael Lewis does his usual journeyman job of writing about a timely, complex subject in a very accessible style. This book is about Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX the crypto exchange and now a convicted felon doing 25 years in federal prison. The book focuses almost entirely on SBF’s childhood and college education for the first half, then discusses the world of cryptocurrencies, trading, and the players in that universe. The actual collapse of FTX and the criminal convictions are a small fraction of the story handled only briefly at the end. Much of it remains a mystery. While it’s an interesting story, Lewis has made the mistake of publishing too soon. He doesn’t even mention SBF’s conviction, only those of the people who pled guilty immediately. He doesn’t explain what led to the collapse except in the most general terms; it appears from the book that as of the writing more money is being found and more malfeasance or idiocy uncovered almost daily. He makes no mention, or even speculation, of the lasting effect the FTX case may have on cryptocurrency in general. If he’d waited until Donald Trump went in whole hog on the idea, we’d have a more interesting and balanced book.
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July 12, 2025
Homecoming by Kate Morton
Homecoming by Kate Morton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This murder mystery is more of an exploration of women, motherhood, family, and the role women were expected to play in the 1950’s in Australia than a crime novel. It’s written by a woman and all the main characters are women, which is unusual for a murder mystery, but as I said, it’s mainly about women and family. The murder (or perhaps an accidental poisoning) takes place at a family picnic in Australia. The mother and three of her children die, but there was an infant in a wicker basket who disappeared. Fast forward to modern day and Jess, a successful writer who was raised by her grandmother Nora, is called to attend to Nora who had suffered a fall. Nora is incoherent but babbles something about a baby. Jess eventually finds out Nora was present at the scene of the family death as her brother owned the estate. Nora also gave birth that same day, we learn. The truth is complicated, convoluted perhaps is a better word, but it all comes out in the end.
The story kept me interested for several days as it is a long book (835 pages LT edition), but it was a struggle to get to where the plot really takes off (page 577). The author pads it, especially the first half, way too much with backstory, much of which is implausible or fanciful, but it’s manageable until it gets interesting. As an American I had almost no concept of Australian geography, but that’s what Google maps is for. Still, much of the logistics and differing terrain were lost on me. The author was too clever by half at the end with red herrings and switcheroos but found a satisfying resolution. The author seems to think that almost every man deserts his wife and children, either literally or by marrying his work. At least that’s the impression the book gives. Perhaps I’m just the rare exception (still with my wife of 45 years). Four stars is a stretch, but I’ll make that stretch.
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July 8, 2025
Polostan by Neal Stephenson
Polostan by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’d read a couple of Stephenson’s books before this one, so I had an idea of his style: epic scope, jumping around to widely different places, non-linear time. That combination can be tiresome if you don’t have the patience for it, but here it works okay to a point. The protagonist is Aurora (name while in Russia)/Dawn (while in the U.S.), a tall, striking American Communist woman living in the time of the Chicago World’s Fair (1933) and Joseph Stalin. She experiences a wide variety of fantastical and improbable situations – learning to train polo ponies in Montana – learning to use a Tommy gun (and then using it) – forms of torture at the hands of both Americans and Russians, taking in the fair as a walking billboard, and many more. The plot doesn’t really come together until the very end and gives the impression the author just kept writing a series of anecdotes or short stories until he figured a way to unite them. There is a lot of originality in the style and considerable research, especially as to the Chicago Fair. I had trouble keeping characters, settings, and places straight. The plot is too scattered and implausible to give it a high rating, but it was entertaining enough when viewed as a collection of unrelated stories. I was not aware until writing this this review that it was the first in a series. It didn’t catch my interest enough to make me want to read the next one.
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June 28, 2025
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Preston writes a compelling non-fiction work about infectious disease, his second. The book begins with a description of the mysterious anthrax bioterrorism attacks of 2001. The victims were some politicians, their staff, mail handling personnel, and one random woman believed to have contracted the disease from her own mail which had been sorted in proximity to a contaminated letter full of anthrax spores. I thought it would be a cracking good real crime story detailing how the FBI and the scientists who helped them cracked the case. Much of the book is about that case, but the case was not solved by the time the book was published and the book does not identify any individual to be the perpetrator. Most of the book focuses on smallpox, specifically the weaponization of smallpox. The history of smallpox as a disease and then as a weapon is fascinating and well depicted. The author humanizes it by describing the laboratory procedures various scientists use to deal with samples or treatment of patients, and he provides the back stories, i.e. brief bios, of the scientists and doctors along the way.
There’s a lot of good science in the book and some tense moments that demonstrate how easily a smallpox epidemic could start that would wipe out forty percent of humanity. Still, a lot is unknown about whether there is a credible bioterror threat. Scientists disagree. The author comes just short of pointing the finger at a particular scientist as the perpetrator of the anthrax attack, but that person turned out not to be person the FBI eventually identified. The book quotes several scientists as stating with great certainty that Saddam Hussein definitely has a stock of weapons of mass destruction, i.e. biological weapons, but one year after the book was published, the U.S. invaded Iraq and found no evidence of such weapons. The book may be relegated to irrelevance as it is over twenty years old now, but the Covid pandemic showed how relevant it still is. A global pandemic is a genuine threat whether occurring naturally, accidentally, or intentionally. The difficulties involved in defending against it, both in the labs and in the outside world are made evident in the book. Smallpox is supposed to exist solely in two closely guarded facilities in the world, one in the U.S., one in Russia, but the book shows how that belief is probably a pipe dream. The development of antiviral medicines against AIDS and HIV give us hope that something similar could be done with smallpox, but the death toll would probably be devastating in any event.
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June 19, 2025
What3words – new White House flagpoles
Donald Trump just installed two new overly tall flagpoles in the White House residence South Lawn. I just submitted the following anagram to the Anagram Times to honor it:
Trump installs new White House flagpoles = Oh, swell – powerful male penis status thing
I also decided to try to find an appropriate What3Words triplet for the installation site. The best I could find is : flags.slug.secret. That’s very close to the site.
Slug’s secret flags would have been more appropriate, but I don’t assign word combos. Don’t get me wrong: I like flying the American flag and have no objection to that. It’s just the idea that Trump has to have even bigger poles that the ones that existed that I’m ridiculing. Pardon the male penis redundancy.
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Camino Island by John Grisham
Camino Island by John Grisham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Thieves steal valuable manuscripts from the Princeton Library. Some of the crooks get caught, but others don’t. The loot disappears. An insurance company hires a team of investigators to track them down since it would be on the hook for hundreds of millions. They suspect Bruce Cable, a book dealer in resort town Camino Island, to be the fence and enlist an attractive young author, Mercer, to work undercover and ingratiate herself with Bruce. There’s plenty of book business gossip and hanky panky going on throughout the book. Eventually a ransom demand is made on Princeton for the return and the action starts.
This is light fluff but amusing enough to pass the time. I suspect Grisham was having fun skewering the publishing business, although most readers probably don’t share his inside knowledge or interest in that industry. Rare book collectors would probably get a kick out of it.
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