theomnivorescientist's reviews
371 reviews

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

adventurous informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.0

The Angel of Darkness brings the Laszlo Kreizler alienist gang together again. This is New York City, 1897. Theodore Roosevelt is in Washington DC looking over the US Navy. Sara Howard runs her own detective agency ( I love this woman ). John Moore still writes for the New York Times and Steve Taggert is employed under Dr Kreizler. In this second adventure, Steve is our narrator as he takes us on another trail to apprehend the vicious Libby Hatch and the string of baby murders that rock New York amidst a tumultuous backdrop of American-Spanish war mongering. Unfortunately, this fails where The Alienist had succeeded in the actual psychological profiling and hunting of the serial killer in the late 19th-century when alienist or psychoanalysis was not a tried method in crime-solving. Although the second book is vivid on historical details of New York and the nascent birth of ballistics, the hunt is more of a procedural chase than a cerebral one. But Caleb Carr is a once-in-a-generation artist. Still got some spine-tingling nights while reading this. 

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics by George Hrabovsky, Leonard Susskind

challenging hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

5.0

The first book in the Theoretical Minimum series by Leonard Susskind based on his physics lectures given at Stanford University. Any subject is as good as the teacher who teaches you. All you need to have is high school algebra and calculus or rather brush it up before you begin. I am slogging through the next book in the series on Quantum Mechanics. You can see all the lectures by Susskind on YouTube. But I learn better with a good book and a notebook scribbling away as I read. I noticed how Susskind spends so much time on describing what exactly a spin is which has fruitful results later. Concepts of quantum mechanics are abstract and understanding them requires shattering previous scientific conceptions. This is where Susskind triumphs. This is a serious book for people who loved physics or love physics but could not pursue it professionally for whatever reason. For all his scientific wars involving the dark demise of the string theory, Susskind, as it turns out, is a fascinating teacher. I owe him a lot for my physics education during the pandemic lockdown and my renewed interest in physics.

Intimations by Zadie Smith

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

3.75

"By comparing your relative privilege with that of others you may be able to modify both your world and the worlds outside of your world-if the will is there to do it. Suffering is not like that. Suffering is not relative; it is absolute. Suffering has an absolute relation to the suffering individual- it cannot be easily mediated by a third term like "privilege". "
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Just finished these essays by Zadie Smith written during the first couple of months into the global pandemic. Understandably, she dwells on the privilege that comes with being socio-economically successful and safe when the world rotates around every day sloughing off jobs, lives, relationships, more lives, and the cycle goes on. Class divide, Trump presidency, and George Floyd make their presence too. The essays are more like diary entries and Zadie's talent shines when she describes emotions you simply cannot explain when you look outside the window and see the months pass by worried and afraid to ask yourself 'When is this going to end?' 

The Poetry of Sex by Sophie Hannah

2.0

Sophie Hannah, best known for her standalone psychological crime novels and the new Agatha Christie stories ( I really do enjoy them ) created this poetry anthology in 2014. There's something for everyone here. It rests heavily on English and American poetry. You have Whitman, D H Lawrence ( enjoyed the poem Figs ), Dickinson, Auden, etc. But I was disappointed with just one Ovid and one Petronius selection. It's sadly lacking in more poetry translations because poetry transcends all languages and cultures. If you want to have a humorous and fun ride through poetry and discover some new poets this one is for you but is no way a vivid collection. 

How Dead Languages Work by Coulter H. George

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.25

The book is a wonderful deconstruction of the joys of a polyglot study, how languages share similarities and dissimilarities in their construction and usage, and what ancient languages can teach us about culture, history, and the evolution of modern languages. Greek, Latin, Old English and Germanic languages, Sanskrit, Old Irish and Celtic, and Hebrew are the seven divisions of this book. They have a general format consisting of discussing sounds, forms or morphology, and then few examples from ancient texts with translations and their grammatical and etymological dissection. This work is one of its kind because usually all these languages are treated separately in other books. The author here has tried to bring various strands together while appreciating the fluidity of our languages. A powerful and informative companion for people interested in etymology, phonology, ancient classics, and languages in general.

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

My first Robert Harris novel. Consider it a medieval English Handmaid's Tale where a young priest Christopher Fairfax makes an arduous horseback journey to settle matters of his recently deceased predecessor. But as soon as he comes to the quiet village and looks through the dead priest's things he finds curious artefacts from the long lost "technical civilization" that existed 800 years ago when people built huge machines, flew in the air, and communicated via curious blocks made of glass and plastic. By this time I was laughing out loud by the ingenuity of the plot. Yes, this is the Dark Ages, not our historical middle ages, but fast-forward 800 years after technology and electricity and internet destroyed our present world. A perfect pandemic-timed novel laced with the cons of institutional oppression, religious vacuum, the value of futurism and progress, community values, and every other strand of lofty civic rules that binds this world together. A real page-turner and a blast. 

The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

adventurous challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Need a brush up on your Ottoman Empire history with a nice bloody whodunnit wrapped around it through a wholly original protagonist? Welcome to Istanbul, 1836. The elite troops called the Janissaries have been disbanded ten years ago by Sultan Mahmud but a string of barbaric murders brings Yashim Togalu, the eunuch courtier, in dangerous proximity to the fear of the rise of the Janissaries and dismantle Istanbul's peace and stability. Goodwin's experience as a historian is in full bloom as he evokes the 19th century Constantinople, the city which is home to such rich histories it almost sighs with the pressure of its own stories. Vacillating between the old ways and the modernization of Europe, Istanbul here is a live experiment in history in this book. Rather than the picturesque views of the Grand Bazaar, the author weaves his tale from the viewpoints of various residents of the city and the fluid demographics. Greeks and Circassians and Russians all have their own microcosm in this place. A must-read for multicultural and history buffs. 

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

adventurous challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Shadow Of Night is my favourite of the three books of the All Souls Trilogy. Matthew and Diana time travel to Elizabethan England where Shakespeare takes a backseat and many colourful figures from the past take this vampire-witch plot to a next level. We meet the secretive School Of Night club headed by Sir Walter Raleigh. Kit Marlowe is in love with Matthew de Clairmont ( of course he is ) and the Queen has a toothache which only Matthew can heal. This second volume is all about coming to face with your demons, accepting their realities, and moving on. Diana learns about her witch abilities and to control its stunning manifestations while Matthew faces his darkest animalistic version while he juggles meeting his father Phillipe (another strong character arc) and his life as the Queen's spy. There is so much in this novel it can be enjoyed just as a standalone historical mystery. Through alchemy, magic, literature, history, and Elizabethan London, Deborah Harkness has kept the charm of historical fiction alive making this not just another vampire fiction. 

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

mysterious relaxing fast-paced

2.5

The Book of Life is the final book in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. The book is quite unremarkable really. Halfway through it, I figured out the mystery of the Ashmole manuscript, the book of life, and Diana Bishop's role in all this. The genetics research bit might be somewhat interesting but the rest of the text is quite cumbersome. I am one of those people who finish a particular set however hard the road is. This book has none of the freshness of the first or the fascinating historical backdrop of the second one of the trilogy.

The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age by John Horgan

adventurous challenging informative inspiring slow-paced

5.0

The End of Science was published in 1996. John was then an editor with the Scientific American. He picked a bone in the scientific community declaring with exhilarating chutzpah that all the burning questions about science have already been answered. With Einstein and Darwin science had ended. What the present scientific community does are more or fewer applications. There are no more big theories to postulate or prove.
As a non-expert and someone who hasn't spent a day in a lab, John was disliked by many. Eventually, he had to leave the Scientific American. But he had the courage and scepticism to point out some crucial problems faced specifically by particle scientists and the importance of string theory. Those interested can read this book's reviews by Peter Woit and Sabine Hossenfelder on their respective blogs. Horgan's problems lie when he starts stretching his end of science mantra to various other subjects like philosophy, biology, etc. As a biologist I can say nothing ever is original but what we do is adding one tiny detail that nobody has done before. It may not be 'The Theory of Everything' but science is not just about finding a unifying explanation. There is also a growing discussion about how modern science is more complex and beyond the grasp of common sense. In defence of tough concepts, science does not follow the limits of human perception but it follows empirical paths. That being said the argument that there might be far-fetched questions like 'what is the true nature of reality?' is beyond the capability of the human brain to process is tough to rebuttal. Maybe the human brain has physical limitations to answer certain questions and that is the ultimate limit there is.

Despite these reservations, I gave the book 5 stars simply because of Horgan's interviews with some of the greatest minds in their fields here. It's quite a treat to hear arguments of the importance of scientific enquiry or its demise from Nobel laureates. Is this a necessary reading for students? I think it is if you really want to open your mind to new ideas and perspectives.