Knocking on Heaven’s Door, by Lisa Randall. Vintage Books. Paperback. © 2012. $20. The idea behind my book reviews is to focus on the geographical themes present in the books I review. This book experienced quite a journey before I was able to even begin reading. I ordered the book used from one of the Amazon…
OK, a play on words, I couldn’t resist. My apologies. The recent spate of winter weather, especially in the American South, might lead many to doubt scientists claims of climate change. Even many of those who support climate change science but lack the technical expertise and who rely on true experts may find themselves doubting.…
Winter Study, by Nevada Barr. Penguin Books. Paperback. 2008. $10. I’m easily impressed by authors who integrate real, local geography into their novels. The idea of being able to “go there” and walk in the footsteps of the protagonist is a romantic notion of mine, I suppose. James Lee Burke fuses southern Louisiana geography into…
An Appetite For Wonder. Richard Dawkins. Ecco Press. 2013. $25 Had I been the publisher, I might have suggested the title, “A Career in Science was a Foregone Conclusion.” Or, perhaps, “How My Genes Forced Me Into Evolutionary Biology.” Either would have been a more appropriate title and truer to the author’s own admissions. “I’m…
The Information, by James Gleick. Pantheon Books. Hardback. 2011. Book Review 0.1, from a previous blog post. Book Review 0.2, Progress Update, pg. 17, from my Goodreads “I’m sure someone will review, “Ho hum, I knew all this stuff on information already.” Meh; good for you. Guess what? Me, too. But, I still like these…
Needless to say, the weather this weekend proved beyond any shadow of doubt to be dangerous, destructive, and deadly. On Saturday, I spent some time and put together an animated GIF to demonstrate how we could see the potential for bad weather developing. The animation is a collection of ten gifs I downloaded from weather.unisys.com.…
Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy; by Kip Thorne; Norton Press; Paperback; $19 I’ve read so many books on black holes, space-time warps, wormholes, the universe, membranes, event horizons, riders on trains looking at stationary candles, people on platforms looking at moving candles, red-shift, blue-shift, Doppler shift, and the like, I think I’ve…
The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, From Stardust to Living Planet; by Robert Hazen. 2012. Viking Books. $28. The first post/book review I failed to provide any maps. And, there are lots of maps I could have posted. Many places around on our planet illustrate the changes our planet has undergone in…
The Story of Earth, by Robert M. Hazen. Viking Press. Hardback. $28 I’m writing this review early. I think it is important I do so. I learned something almost immediately, within the Introduction, in fact. Not even did I reach the first chapter before I realized how ignorant I have allowed myself to become. And,…
This Machine Kills Secrets: How Wikileaks, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information. Andy Greenberg. Dutton Press. Hardback. $12. A dilemma looms. How much of what an organization does should remain private? If the organization crosses the line and become corrupt, how best to protect the privacy and identity of the whistleblower? I…
Constant Geography 
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