Books

Shannon and I have decided to keep track of how many books we read this year. And here seems as good a place as any to do it.

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. Bryson is a very entertaining writer, who is not a scientist. He finds science books boring, and set out to write a book about well, nearly everything thing that would be more interesting. And it is interesting. Of course, one of the ways he makes it more interesting is to add biographical bits that have nothing to do with his discussion of the developement of Big Bang theory, evolution, the age of the earth, and other science topics. It interesting, and while he adds in odd trivia, he still remains serious and accurate. There was one or two areas where I had a quibble with how some information was presented, but over all, I liked it very much.

"What do YOU care what other people think?" This is another Feynman book, and is the follow up to "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman," I guess. While "Surely you must be joking . . ." is full of short funny stories, "What do YOU care . . " is longer and somewhat more serious. The book is somewhat split into two main sections. The first is about his first wife. They met as teenagers, and by the time they married, they both knew she had a serious disease that would limit their time together. She died a few years later. The story is terrific. The second part of the book is about his involvement in the investigation of the Challenger space shuttle flight. This part is a bit slower and more detailed, but still interesting. Feynman was a very straight forward man, and wasn't afraid of anybody, and I love to see how such a "Curious Character" interacts with the world.