Book Log 2015 #28: Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

If you ever wondered what would happen if the moon suddenly broke into several large pieces, this book is for you.

As it turns out, having the moon break into several large pieces would be a bad thing. The large pieces, as they collide with each other, would create smaller pieces, and at some point in that process the smaller pieces would start to fall to Earth. And not stop for several hundred years (if not longer). In this case, the people of Earth have comparatively little time - two or three years at most - to figure out the best way to save whatever remnant of humanity it can.

That takes up a majority of the book, with the eventual plan threatened at every turn by the venality of politicians and the dangers of living and working in space. Orbital mechanics is involved. A lot.

Move forward 5000 years. A new human civilization (or, maybe more accurately, seven new human civilizations) based in space is beginning to reinhabit an Earth. But it's not going as smoothly as it appears, as seen when a landing party investigates what's behind some mysterious sightings in one part of the planet.

It's an epic work on an epic scale (what was the last book Stephenson wrote that was under 800 pages?), and it is very entertaining. Still not sure I fully buy how things turned out in the future (that the seven Eves of the title would lead to seven human races with noticeable distinctions between the seven), but the combination of genetic engineering and time (and Stephenson's imagination) doesn't put that out of reach. Probably his best book since Cryptonomicon.

Book Log 2015 #27: The City Under the Skin by Geoff Nicholson

Women in an unnamed city are being kidnapped, tattooed with cryptic markings, and then let go otherwise none the worse for wear. This draws the attention of one of the city's leading criminals, a killer with a map obsession who sees the markings as related to both his work and his hobby. He recruits a low-level hood trying to make good to get these women for him, a process which winds up bringing a rare map store clerk and a mysterious woman together in investigating just what these women represent, and how much danger everyone is in.

The book is a perfect marriage of Nicholson's crime fiction past and his interest in urban decay (prior to this novel he wrote the non-fiction book Walking in Ruins). Each character is compelling without being overly complex or unlikely, and the story does a great job of blending the personal aspects of the mystery with the larger, more common themes of crime fiction (the politics of organized crime, political corruption, etc.).

I really enjoyed this book, and look forward to delving into the author's previous works.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book chosen based on its cover)

Book Log 2015 #26: The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen

This departure from the Department Q novels is set during World War II and the Munich Olympics. In the first part, we follow a pair of British airmen who, after being shot down, escape from their pursuers by jumping on a train. It turns out to be a medical train, and the duo survive by pretending to be patients, almost all of whom are catatonic. Their ruse proves too good, and they are both sent to a special medical facility - the Alphabet House in question - for the treatment of psychological cases. The pair take very different routes in trying to maintain their ruse while avoiding the patients who are also faking, and will do anything to protect their secrets.

The story moves ahead to the 1970s, when one of the pair sets out to find his former mate. This descends into a longish game of cat and mouse with those other patients who are now part of German society and are still willing to do anything to protect their secrets.

Both sections of the book feel over long - the 1970s section in particular, which reminded me of The Marco Effect a little bit with action padding the story. On the other hand, this is a bit of a labor of love, as Adler-Olsen got the idea for the book in part from his parents and their discussions of psychology.  I didn't care for this book as much as the Department Q novels, but it is a different sort of war novel (the author goes so far as to state that it's not a war novel at all in the preface), so it could be worth a look if you're looking for a WW2 novel with a different approach.

Book Log 2015 #25: The Fear Index by Robert Harris

This book takes one of the growing trends in the financial sector - the use of algorithms and AI in tracking markets and making trades based on automated predictions - and takes it to the place where Michael Critchton would have taken it were he still alive.

Alex Hoffman is a world-renowned scientist who teams up with an investment banker to create a fund that makes everyone rich. But when they move on to the next level, trying to create a system that will use an actual fear index - one that reflects insecurities in the market - things start to spiral out of control.

The main drawback for me with this book is that it was much clearer to me what was happening than it was to anyone in the book - even the main character.  But I was also expecting something dramatic, so it's not like I was approaching things from the same mindset as the characters.

It's well-written, but I do prefer Harris' historical fiction more than his contemporary novels. Still, if you're a fan it's worth a read.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: Read a book where the main character isn't human. I'm counting this here given the role the AI plays in driving the plot.)

Book Log 2015 #24: Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson

I needed a book at the end of a vacation, and found this for five Euros at a souvenir shop. It was easily the best five Euros I spent on that trip (non-Guinness division).


The book is a collection of stories that continue Ronson's quest to understand life and the fringe and how people cope in extraordinary situations. The stories are grouped into rough thematic sections ("Rebellious Lives," "Everyday Difficulty," etc.), though I would have just as happily read the stories if they were just thrown in there in chronological order.

Some of the stories have an investigative quality (most notably the title story, about a young female staffer on a cruise who apparently killed herself by going overboard, and the cruise line's apparent stonewalling of family and law enforcement), while others are more out there (for example, attending a UFO convention with the apparently dedicated UFO believer Robbie Williams). There's even an example of Ronson becoming part of his own story in coverage of a pedophilia trial involving a well-known British music producer. Also highly recommended is a story about Stanley Kubrick and his voluminous archives.

The collection is probably more in line with Them or Out of the Ordinary than The Men Who Stare at Goats, but it very much worth perusing, even if you only read selected stories.

(PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book of short stories. I know they probably meant fiction, but I'll take it).

Book Log 2015 #23: Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason 

This is the third book in a series following Icelandic detective Erlendur Sveinsson, who is the stock representation of a police detective in Scandinavian noir fiction. In this case he's trying to solve the murder of a seventysomething man which apparently has links to a 30-plus year old death of a young girl.

I can't say I was too taken with this book. Erlendur is too much the bedraggled, world-weary murder cop, and the complicated relationship he has with his junkie daughter doesn't help. I also found the dialog pretty stilted, which I assume is an issue with translation. Finally, I found Elendur's approach to solving the crime - fart around for a while, and then have a hunch made out of seemingly nowhere pay off - to not be that rewarding. Again, maybe there was some nuance lost in translation, but in my reading things seemed to wrap up more or less at random.

The name of the book refers to a collection of unique medical samples that had gone from storage at a hospital into the hands of private collectors. This is treated as a pretty serious breach of trust, but I had a hard time mustering the same level of outrage (I suppose Iceland doesn't have a Mutter Museum). There's a sample that plays an important part in solving the case, which Erlendur has to recover for genetic testing. I've read that the genetic testing aspect of the book was a critique of biotech firm's attempt at creating a genetic database of Icelanders as part of finding ways to use genetic information to cure diseases. I didn't get that, but I also live in a country whose pluralistic nature is obvious. Were I from Iceland, and convinced of having a certain genetic solidarity with other Icelanders, I would likely have taken more away from Jar City on this front.

In any case, not a series I'll be racing to keep up with, though it does generate some interest by being set in Iceland if nothing else.

Book Log 2015 #22: Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Greene's novel The Third Man is a classic in the espionage genre, with its tense depiction of postwar Vienna as it segues from hot war to Cold War.

This is not The Third Man.

Instead, this novel takes a humorous look at spying (if I remember correctly, Greene called this an entertainment rather than a novel in the forward to the edition I read). A vacuum salesman in Havana is approached by British intelligence to serve as their eyes and ears in the Cuban capital. While he doesn't quite have a head for espionage, the salesman does have a head for fiction, and creates a network of fictional contacts (and drawings of imaginary weapons, which are actually close-up drawings of vacuum parts). At first this helps him pad his income (which he needs to keep his daughter in school and on her horse), but things quickly turn dangerous when the Brits, the Russians, and the Cuban police start to take his lies seriously.

I really enjoyed this, as the humor and satire balanced out well with the more serious back end. It's a quick read, too, as it's on the shortish side (more of a long novella, really).

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: nothing I haven't used yet, but it would count for a book that became a movie and a book set in another country)

Book Log 2015 #21: One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

Charles Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic. Babe Ruth keeps hitting home runs. Calvin Coolidge tours the west and announces he won't be running for re-election. There are some of the major events that marked the summer of 1927, which Bill Bryson recounts in this highly engaging book. It's not just the major events and their detailed recounting that makes the book so engaging (the in-depth review of the failures of trans-Atlantic flight is a great example of this), it's also the way that minor events (or events that were major at the time but have faded over time) are woven in to give a fuller account of the summer. Flagpole sitters, sash weight murderers, and oddly named socialites all give added color.

I brought this book on vacation, figuring that two weeks and two longish plane flights would give me enough time to finish this. I wound up blowing through it before the first week was up, stealing time during the trip to continue reading. So yes, recommended.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with a number in the title, a book you own but never read)

Book Log 2015 #20: The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell 

A girl runs away from her home in 1980s London and becomes involved in a supernatural battle between two groups of immortals in which regular humans (the "bone clocks" of the title) are either semi-willing supporters or a kind of food source. We follow the girl throughout her life, up to an old age where scarce resources is driving civilization to the edge, but with the occasional insertion into a war where she may be the key to victory.

I had similar feelings about this book as I did Cloud Atlas- I enjoyed it a great deal but felt like I was missing something. It could just be that I'm still not used to Mitchell's style of writing, which merges timelines and dimensions seamlessly.  Getting used to it won't be the worst thing in the world.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: book with more than 500 pages, a book with magic)

Book Log 2015 #19: Why Preists? by Gary Wills

In this book, Wills examines what he calls the "failed tradition" of the Catholic priesthood.  This mostly looks at the way the church developed the priesthood using a specific - and perhaps not that accurate -reading of certain Bible passages coupled with later writings by Aquinas to create the tradition of Jesus as priest, a power then handed down through St. Peter and eventually to the popes, cardinals and the rest.

At least that's what I think it did, as (a) I had trouble following Wills' argument due to my own deficiencies in theology and history, and (b) I didn't finish the book due to those deficiencies.

I think the topic is interesting, and a version written for your average layperson would be helpful.

 (Popsugar Reading Challenge: not applicable, not going to use a book I didn't finish)

Book Log 2015 #18: The Returned by Jason Mott

When ABC cancelled Resurrection, it left viewers (myself included) at a point where the worldwide phenomenon of people returning from the dead was an accepted fact, but tinged by the possibility that a baby born to one of them was a harbinger of evil. Wanting to know how this all played out, I picked up this book, on which the series was based.

And, not surprisingly, the book is only tangentially related to the series. It's still about people who return from the dead, but the story is more focused on the central returnee - the boy who returns decades after his drowning - and the town's reaction to the returners. It's a more personal story, which makes sense given that Mott wrote it in the wake of his mother's death, with a premise of what he would do if she returned to life for one day.

It's not a bad book, but my disappointment in how different it was from the TV series may be coloring my judgement. I did find some of the characters a little too broadly drawn, which I may also have found more troubling given how the TV show had more time to develop them.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book based on or turned into a TV show)

Book Log 2015 #17: The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian

Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Neville Hammersmith are back, representing Scotland Yard's Murder Squad in an investigation into a mysterious jail break using a train. As the duo (and the rest of the squad) track down the four escapees, it becomes clear that there's something larger going on involving some of London's most respectable men, and that there was a fifth escapee - one well known to London for his "ripping" murders.

Not sure if it was too early to play the Jack the Ripper card, but I did like the way he was introduced into the series. I was also hoping for a little more of the internal working of the Murder Squad that was in the first book. The subplot involving Day and his mentor did at least fill some of that gap.

Also notable is that Day's wife finally has her baby, meaning that the first three books took place in the span of six months, tops. London in the 1890s was even more dangerous than I originally thought.

First it was the campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill to replace Andrew Jackson. Now the news that the planned $10 bill redesign will see a woman potentially replace Alexander Hamilton. While it makes sense to introduce a woman on a bill that's planned for a redesign, it does stick in the craw to think that the father of the American financial system will have a reduced presence while Jackson, who didn't even like paper currency, remains on the $20.

So my thought - why not have a man and a woman on each denomination of paper currency, half of each printing for each gender?

$1 - George Washington stays, of course, but is joined by Martha Washington. She's the obvious choice, both for being the first First Lady and for already appearing on a $1 note.

$2 - Thomas Jefferson remains on our least circulated bill, joined by Pocahontas. Like Martha Washington, Pocahontas has appeared on a US paper note, and like Jefferson she is from what is now Virginia, and like Jefferson she spent time in Europe (though for very different reasons).

$5 - Abraham Lincoln is joined on the fin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, for obvious reasons. I went with her over the likes of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the latter two opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments (for not providing voting rights to women as well as men of all races). I can understand the rationale, but it seems wrong to pair Lincoln with anyone who was against those amendments.

$10 - Hamilton stays, and is joined by Frances Perkins. Perkins was the first woman in the US Cabinet, and is still the longest serving Secretary of Labor.

$20 - for now we'll keep Jackson here, and pair him with Harriet Tubman, who won the Women on 20s vote. I'd like to think that would annoy Jackson to no end.

And if we wanted to dump Jackson, we could pair Tubman with another figure from abolition, like Frederick Douglass or William Lloyd Garrison.

$50 - If we're looking for a military counterpart to Grant, the obvious choice here would be Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, whose contributions to computer science include writing the first compiler, developing the language COBOL, and coining the term debugging.

$100 - I would pair Ben Franklin with Eleanor Roosevelt, as both played roles in international diplomacy and both were known for work in newspapers. Not the strongest connection, but I think it's enough.

Book Log 2015 #16: Head of State by Andrew Marr 

It's 2017, and the UK is facing a referendum on whether or not to stay in the European Union. The factions, headed by the prime minister (pro-EU) and an opposition MP (anti-EU), have allowed an eminent historian unhindered access to both campaigns. At least until something shocking happens, and factions within the government unleash their own plots for the looming election, often at the expense of those who may know too much.

This is the first stab at fiction for Marr, who is a well-known political commentator in the UK. His knowledge of politics and media show through, but the book is let down by its attempt to be both straight and humorous, as it's never successful enough at either to really work. The story is pretty inventive, though, so kudos are due there.

It's also worth noting that the referendum is likely to happen in real life - the Conservatives committed to one by the end of 2017 in their platform for the 2015 general election. It will hopefully entail less murder than what's in the book.

Book Log 2015 #15: The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Things are changing for Carl Morck and Department Q, and not in a good way. A rival of Carl's is now overseeing the department and has saddled the team with a new member loyal to the rival, and Carl's long-term romantic plans take a sudden detour. But they do manage to get a new case, one involving the death of a government bureaucrat and possible financial misdealing by a government agency and a bank. The key to the case? A teenaged Roma boy (the Marco of the title) who has to avoid his vengeful clan and various hired guns to get what he knows to the authorities - whom he barely trusts.

This installment in the series is more of a conventional thriller - there seems to be a Marco-driven chase scene in every other chapter - but it's still solid. I would have liked a little more progress on the series-spanning plots, which get much less time than in the previous book, but there are new issues- Assad's recovery from injuries sustained in the previous book, and a potential romantic entanglement between Rose and the department's new member - which add something for each character.

In any case, I did enjoy this and continue to recommend the series.

Book Log 2015 #14: A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

One of the few things we know (or think we know) about Kim Jong-Il is his love of film. Beyond his personal passion, he saw how movies could serve as both propaganda and as a way to promote North Korea to the wider world.

To that end, a well known South Korean actress and her director ex-husband (both on the tail end of their careers at home) were apparently kidnapped and brought to the north to make movies that would inspire the citizenry and improve the country's reputation globally. And this kind of worked - the duo made a number of films that were well-received, even winning some international rewards. This all came to an end when the pair, allowed to travel abroad as part of their duties, escaped to the West.

This book tells what is a pretty fantastic story, even by the measure of what we hear about life in North Korea. Fischer provides plenty of background about the country and its leaders to flesh out the story (some reviews say too much, I didn't find it so). The most interesting part of the story to me, though, was the theory that the pair actually went to North Korea voluntarily and left because they thought they'd been rehabilitated enough to find film work in the West. I was a little surprised at how widely held this belief was, especially among South Koreans. But I suppose it's no more weird than a pair of kidnappings.

Worth a read if you're interested in North Korea, certainly.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book published this year)

Book Log 2015 #13: Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

This is the first book I've chosen specifically to meet part of the Popsugar Reading Challenge (I knew Silver Screen Fiend would meet parts of the challenge, but picked it because of the tremendous word of mouth support). I've read Chabon's more recent novels, so I was curious to see how this stacked up. And while I liked it, I did not like it as much as his newer works. I never could build up the requisite sympathy for Grady Tripp, and some of the wackiness seemed like it was included for wackiness' sake.

Another problem is that I could not stop mentally comparing the book to Straight Man, the Richard Russo novel which is very similar in several respects (set in Pennsylvania, features an English professor struggling to write a novel, extramarital romantic conflicts, moody male writing student), and while Russo's book is written based on his experiences as an English professor, the similarities were distracting. It's not fair to ding Wonder Boys for the order in which I read the two books, but it was a problem nonetheless.

All that being said, it's still really good.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: book that became a movie, a book written by an author with your same initials)

Book Log 2015 #12 : Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt

This short but hugely entertaining memoir recounts Oswalt's early days in Hollywood, when he developed a self-described addiction to classic films, seeing as many as possible between comedy gigs. The plan, ostensibly, was to use this compulsion for film as an autodidactic film school leading toward directing. That never quite panned out, but it did help him add writing and performing skills to his comedic skills. Beyond the movies, this book also gives us a look at the alternative comedy scene in LA in the 1990s, as well as insight into Oswalt's progression into TV and film.

I'm mostly familiar with Oswalt through his Twitter account and appearances on talk shows, so this gave me a much better appreciation of how he got to where he is now. I also appreciated the appendices where Oswalt created a month-long festivals of films that never were for the deceased owner of his favorite theater and a complete listing of the films Oswalt saw during the time of the book. It's a quick and entertaining read, very much recommended.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a memoir, a funny book, a book with a color in the title. It could also be a book you can finish in a day, but where I've already used it I'll stick with the triple.)

Book Log 2015 #11: The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell

The future of England is in peril again, but this time the Danes aren't the main problem. Aethelred, ruler of Mercia, is dying, and without a male to succeed him there's a good chance that Wessex will find a way to finally absorb Mercia, either by force or by installing a puppet on the Mercian throne.

Enter Uhtred, champion and occasional lover of Athelflaed, the queen who can't succeed to the throne. Or can she?

It's another solid outing for the Saxon tales, with the additional surprise (spoiler alert) of Uhtred, son of Uhtred, taking over some of the narration duties. The series has been going on for quite a bit, but as we know that the elder Uhtred lives to retake his ancestral home, it'll be interesting to see if the younger Uhtred plays a larger role in future books. 

Book Log 2015 #10: The American Plate: A History of the United States in 100 Bites by Libby O'Connell

This book should have been right up my alley, but I never quite connected with it. Not sure why, given that it combines American and food history, both of which really interest me. I do have two theories:

1. I was already familiar enough with the "bites" that start the book that I got bored and didn't bother to skip ahead.

2. Overly pedantic expectations about what "bite" meant. Several of the entries aren't bites at all, and there was some repetition (Thanksgiving was covered by at least 2 or 3 bites).

Likely it was parts of both of these. You should give it a shot.