Book List pt 2

That last book post was getting too long.  So, here's the next set of books.  With this, I'm caught up on reviews, at least at the time of me scheduling this post, which I suppose I'll leave for a few days in the future.  See, this is how you keep people attentive, always leave them wanting more.  My next project is going to be a treatise on how to build a blog that will bring in dozens of readers.  Now, having reached a requisite level of ado, here are some more books worth reading (and one that is not):


Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku
Not a good book.  The idea is that Dr. Kaku looks at things from science fiction (time travel, faster than light travel, light sabers, teleportation, etc.) and describes them as either possible in the next few decades or centuries, possible but requiring a level of technology that seems far in the future, or not possible without a fundamental change in how we understand physics.  I found the book to be so non-technical and arbitrary as to be unreadable.  On light sabers, he essentially said that we can make plasmas that would essentially behave like light sabers do, so if you just had a tube with little holes in it to let the plasma out, and some marvelous advances in battery technology to make powering it possible then we should be able to make them.  Should be 50 to 100 years away.  He doesn't begin to describe how we would make batteries that would be many orders of magnitude better than what we currently have, nor does he describe a material that would stand up to plasmas, and let me smack it into other people's light sabers without shattering and be light enough to easily use.  He just seems to trust that because science has invented many wondrous things, we clearly will continue to invent all of these specific wondrous things.  (And I couldn't help but note that it is easy to write a book making claims about things 50+ years out, knowing full well that no one will remember your book then, and even if they do, you won't be around to see if you were right or not.)  I made it less than a third of the way through the book.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
This book is written from the perspective of Dr. Jennifer White, a former surgeon who was forced to retire because of Alzheimer's disease.  As the reader, we experience the world through her eyes, as she struggles to remember who these people are visiting her (her children), and what they're talking about.  At the center of the story is the murder of Jennifer's best friend and neighbor, Amanda.  Jennifer is a suspect in the murder, but most days she doesn't even remember that Amanda is dead.  It is painful at times to experience a little bit of what it would be like to suffer from this tragic disease.  The book is very well written, following a disjointed narration, and leaving us wondering who killed Amanda - with the possibility that even the murderer doesn't know who killed her.  I won't give away the ending other than to say that there is at least reasonable closure to the plot.

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
This work of fiction is a collection of letters from Jason Fitger, a tenured professor of writing at Payne University.  He deals with funding cuts, construction annoyances (for upgrades to the Economics Department facilities), and an endless stream of requests for letters of recommendation.  As befitting his occupation, he writes wonderfully colorful letters on all topics, particularly for some of the more ridiculous letters of recommendation that students ask him for.  The book is short (180 pages) and whimsical, but through the course of his letters (the novel is entirely made up of his outgoing mail) a few plot lines develop, and I found the book to be much more poignant than I first suspected.