Review: Persuasion

Persuasion by Jane Austen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful story on the virtue of quiet intelligence, authentic love and true honor. Often referred to as the perfect novel, Austen lovers will not be disappointed in Persuasion.

There are an abundance of false scoundrels, avaricious whims, and pompous fools and they all drag down the courageous and long-suffering in a kind of pastoral good vs. evil fight to the end. Really great stuff!

It had real pace, and for a book with single sentences spanning one-third of the page, although beautiful and perfect sentences, this quick pace was much appreciated.

Reading Austin is like going to the opera. It feels foreign, yet it is thoroughly enriching; either in spite of the fact that the "stage" is so foreign to modern life, or because of this. Who wouldn't want Anne as a dear friend and be better for it? Who wouldn't be wiser and better for having a mentor like Captain Wentworth?

I'm always sad when I finish such a fine read as this. Two thumbs up!

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Review: Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World

Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A thoroughly enjoyable read - I only wish it were longer.

Who could have guessed that a secondary metabolite produced by plants to poison insects would end up enslaving most of humanity to their morning cup of rise and shine? If the chemical that helps us all face the world is a product of a clever plant that is trying not to get eaten by other things, it also begs the question - are plants using us in this relationship or are we using them? Have we all been duped into our dominated state by ... plants? .

These are the kinds of compelling perspectives Pollan puts forth as he examines the coffee bean, the history of coffee production, and our intractable dependence on trimethylxanthine.

His writing is spry (as always) and his insights are potent. You might even think twice about continuing with caffeine. Although the central purpose of this book is not to persuade people to give up coffee, facts are facts. It will cross your mind.

I will leave you with this quote on adenosine, the current focus of my research, and the reason I read this book:

"Caffeine consumption is simply hiding or postponing our exhaustion by blocking the action of adenosine. As the liver removes the caffeine from circulation, the dam holding back all that pent-up, still-mounting adenosine will break, and when the rebounding chemical floods the brain, you will crash, feeling even more tired than you did before that first cup of coffee. So what will you do then? Probably have another cup.

Yup. Heavy sigh.

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Review: Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every sentence is festooned with snobbery and every deeply-flawed character is an appliance for the author's main task. (I just loved this!)

Years ago, I saw the Brideshead Revisited PBS series with Jeremy Irons (as Charles Ryder). So, I was actually very surprised, throughout my reading, by this most obvious theme - Catholicism. Every character undergoes some kind of a religious awakening and conversion. It is woven into every major occurrence - it is a repeating chorus.

However, it is the bombast, the hauteur - all wrapped beautifully in such ornamental language - that kept me reading with joy for many hours.

A quote which has stuck with me: He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending he was the whole.

A solidly interesting story relayed in the most luxurious language imaginable - two thumbs up!

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Review: The Woman in White

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Through all the ways of our unintelligible world, the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together."

The depth and breadth of this epic was astounding. I am absolutely not ready to let go of the magnificent characters. For days I awoke thinking about them (and their fates) and fell asleep thinking about the same. The Woman in White is a dark and sinister story - so terrifying at times that I found myself gesticulating wildly during the most exquisitely tense and scary moments. I am not sure I've ever read a scarier book, yet it is not science fiction or fantasy. It is everyday evil one confronts in this story and the author's magic pen reveals it with great composure, calm and care; the effect of this approach is hair-raising.

A friend recommended I read Wilkie Collins knowing that I am a huge Dickens fan. The two were contemporaries and even collaborated on a few things. What Collins had that Dickens did not is legal scholarship. In fact Dickens did not like lawyers. Collins, however, has a deep respect for the process and his legal training comes through in many ways. It is a real asset in this story. The man is thorough.

The author treats every element, every slice of his intricate story, as all worthy of complete explanation and complete resolution. With such art, he leaves no detail unaddressed. Sometimes after reading a BIG book you might wonder about little things....."How did he get from that house to the station so rapidly .....? Why didn't that character who was introduced in the beginning ever show up again?" . I promise you. You will not have any unanswered questions when the end unravels. He gives each denouement the utmost care in explanation, and each is like a gift to the reader.

This is written in the 19th century. The world was different. Whether or not you like the social constructs of long ago, you will be completely transported to 1850-something. I mean, you will feel like you are there.

My favorite quotes:

"Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense privilege! I possess it. Do you?"

"I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones beneath."

"We don't want genius in this country unless it is accompanied by respectability.

If you read this book, your heart will pound with excitement. You will look for something with which to whack the scoundrels and you will be fist-pumping the accomplishments of the good in the face of great evil. It is about love and hate, laziness and industry, treachery and goodwill -- and every sentence written is perfection. The writing is so superb, it will raise you up along with it and suspend you there. You will love it.


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Review: Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World

Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World by Omar Abbosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book about how businesses should prepare for the present and ongoing disruption caused by new technologies. Pivot to the Future is well-written, although it is Accenture-centric. No surprise there, as they author it.

There were great insights gained from stories of business successes and failures - the results of good or not-so-good responses to what they call big bang disruption and compressed disruption.

The "wise pivot" is an especially useful idea - and not just for business success. It's good life advice. The authors want us to extract full value from all that was, all that is, and all that is yet to come. They touch on old styles of leadership no longer being relevant in a maker's world that is constantly scanning for the net big thing, eager to seize the moment. The old corporate culture must be prepared to leave the safe harbor of today in its quest for the future.

The most succinct advice offered in the book: "Look to the future without being beguiled by it." I guess if you are doing this, never taking your eye off the ball, while working hard to release all of the trapped value in your current gig, you are bound to grow in the right direction.

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Review: The Spacy Timetures of Sparco Tilo

The Spacy Timetures of Sparco Tilo by Riya Tyagi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In The Spacy Timetures of Sparco Tilo, the young author takes us on a tour of the mysterious world of quantum physics as relayed to her by the great traveler of all our universes, Sparco Tilo.

Do you want to know how best to travel through a black hole without having your body distorted beyond repair? Or maybe you want to know how to program matter so that you can build something out of thin air? These things, and much more, you will learn in Part 1.

But hold onto your hat (or your MatterDoer86!), because Part 2 will bring you back to planet earth with very practical explanations of holograms, wave functions, electron bubbles and quantum computing. And to wrap up this cruise through the nature of matter and energy, Riya, the author, finishes strong with definitions of quantum physics, negative mass, antimatter, quantum entanglement, and more.

This middle-school student has much knowledge to impart and she succeeds! Even if you are like me, with no gift for grasping complex theories in science, you will learn volumes from Miss Tyagi. She has the brain of a scientist and the soul of a teacher. Her illustrations are lively and engaging, too!

Riya says that Sparco Tilo uncovered many secrets while traveling through space and as he relayed these to her, she was fortunate to be his listener. Well, I was fortunate to be her listener and you will be, too.

Two thumbs up for the real and the unreal as revealed to us by Miss Tyagi. I look forward to more good things from this author.

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Review: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Utterly spellbinding from start to finish, The River of Doubt recounts Theodore's Roosevelt's exploration into the heart of darkness with a small group of outdoorsmen, scientists and naturalists to survey/canoe down the uncharted Rio da Dúvida in the Amazon basin.

It is a terrifying, harrowing account.

There were times I had to stop listening, just to get relief from imagining their awful suffering under relentless assault from insects, heat, drenching rains, ruined boats, fevers, dysentery, hunger, and mutinous workers. But, the extraordinary bravery, grit, and honor with which the group carried on, even in the face of death, was so compelling, that I could not stay away long.

This is a powerful page-turner.

The small expedition was ill-prepared for the brutality of the landscape due to a series of bad decisions on the selection of the people who would pack their supplies. The folly of these people bordered on the criminal, to my mind. It resulted in an ongoing perfect storm of ad hoc corrective measures all of which made the lives of the expedition completely miserable.

You will feel the sting of the insects, the bone-weary discouragement of the men as they come upon yet more rapids and must portage their dugouts, and the constant fear of predators in the water and on the ground.

They only narrowly escaped death.

It is an amazing, true story of survival against all odds. You will come to love Theodore Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and especially the unstoppable Colonel Rondon.

What an amazing group of men!


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