Nevermore: Astrophysics, Everybody Lies, Carl Sagan, British, Suzy Hansen

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began with a fascinating book: Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.  The author has spent years examining what data people really share in their online searching, gaining insight into what people really think about racial, political, and personal issues.  Our reader found the book extremely informative and interesting.

Turning to scholarly non-fiction, another reader was tackling two books on the ethnic origins of the people of The Origins of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer and Saxons, Vikings, and Celts by Bryan Sykes.  Both examine the linguistics, sociology and even DNA evidence to determine historical migration patterns.  Both authors propose that the British Isles were completely de-populated by the last ice age, but humans found three sites of refuge within Europe and later branched out again.  Our reader said that sometimes the statistics quoted were way beyond her, but were still well worth reading.

Next up was Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen.  Journalist Hansen worked at a high-profile newspaper in New York, but chose to move to Istanbul, Turkey to learn more about the Islamic culture that was influencing so much of the world.  She was surprised to learn more about the United States of America and how it was often viewed as an overbearing, imperialist bully which invades other countries in the name of doing good.  Our reader learned a lot from the book and believed that everyone should live abroad at some point in order to gain a wider worldview.

Another reader completed Carl Sagan: A Life by Keay Davidson.  Written a few years after Sagan’s death, this book didn’t sugarcoat his shortcomings.  Sagan was very interested in non-terrestrial life and admitted that there are so many things that we don’t know about science.  His desire to spread scientific knowledge to the masses led to the Cosmos television series and to many books.  Our reader found it very intriguing, and said, “I read it because I wanted to think about intelligent life, somewhere.”

Still out in space, Nevermore then discussed Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Pop-culture references such as Star Trek are included, blurring the line between science and entertainment, just as both Sagan and Tyson have done while producing the television series Cosmos.  Our reader enjoyed listening to the book and found the author’s anecdotes interesting and relatable, saying that although she didn’t understand all the science, it was enough to give her a small understanding of grand concepts.

Nevermore: Dan Brown, Christopher Coake, DNA and Game of Thrones

Dan Brown’s new novel, Inferno, was the subject of discussion in more than one Nevermore meeting. Robert Langdon, the professor of symbology from The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, etc. awakens in a hospital in Florence with a touch of amnesia.  The next thing he knows, he’s on the run and following Brown’s trademark trail of codes, ciphers and clues. The first reviewer was definitely unimpressed, feeling that the book had too much padding-- much in the form of architectural description. Another reviewer found it very slow going at first, but then the plot did pick up.  He too noted the abundance of information on various Italian cities and architecture as well as on Dante. Finally, the book was sort of summed up as "excellent plot, terrible narration."

Another reviewer highly recommended a collection of short stories by Christopher Coake entitled We’re In Trouble.  As the title promises, each story opens with a character in some sort of serious trouble, love in the face of death.  Each character is challenged and the reader anxiously waits to see how the character will react.  Our reader said she was instantly drawn into each story and thinks Coake is definitely a writer to watch.  The book earned strong reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin is proving popular across various media.  The recent HBO series has attracted a wide and avid viewership, and putting the original novels back on the library’s reserve list in both printed and audio formats.  A Nevermore member put in a plug for the new graphic novel version of the books, and requested we get the others in the series as they come out.

Louise Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine was mentioned by another reader.  This was Erdrich’s first novel and revolves around two Chippewa families, spanning some fifty years. The novel moves back and forth in time, and is actually a series of interwoven short stories that form a whole.

Two non-fiction books were mentioned, both involving DNA.  Origins of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer uses the latest genetic, archaeological, and linguistic findings to determine the composition of the British people.  Oppenheimer argues that the bulk of the genetic heritage predates the Anglo-Saxons and is a great deal more complex than was previously believed.  The subject is fascinating, but our reviewer found the book to be almost too technical.

A similar comment was made about The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean.  The title refers to the Paganini’s extremely flexible fingers, the result of a genetic mutation which aided his musical ability but may also have shortened his life. Other parts of the book discuss an assortment of human and some non-human DNA (Neanderthals, for example) which makes for an interesting book, although the reviewer said there was a bit of a slog through the more technical aspects of DNA.