Review: Linear Methods: A General Education Course

Linear Methods: A General Education Course by David Hecker
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

"...this text still offers opportunities to amplify linear methods in a college algebra course. This includes the extensive coverage of Gauss-Jordan around elementary row operations with little reliance on matrix inverses. The introduction to linear regression is based on transpose matrices over the iterative least squares sum approach typically used at this level. I find Algebra I textbooks often leave the transpose operation out there as a seldom applied technique while students find least squares sums a tedious exercise better done by a calculator and offering no real insight. I find intriguing the idea introducing linear regression as a matrix method applying newly introduced matrix operations...."

[Look for my entire review at MAA Reviews]

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Review: All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America

All Shook Up: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America by Glenn C. Altschuler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A nice, enthusiastics read of the musically seminal decade roughly around the '50s. I don't see the author making a cogent argument that rock "changed" America. It could have been symptom, catalyst, cause or had any of those roles at different times. I do like that the author went deeper into more obscure pioneers and dimensions of this story than I usually see in such histories, including coverage of Pat Boone bleaching rock, LaVern Baker, Jack Barry, the broadcaster-led BMI, payola and the birth of Top 40, Arlan Coolidge, social critic Vance Packard, Elvis Presley's longtime guitarist Scotty Moore, and more. The biggest thing for me was a clear vision on how hillbilly instrumentalists reacting to R&B gave birth to the rock sound and rock combo formatL

..."Bill Haley and the Comets." Composed of six
or seven men, playing stringed instruments, drums, and a saxophone,
with Haley as guitarist and lead singer, the Comets played driving and
danceable music. Haley's own composition, "Crazy, Man, Crazy,"
reached the Billboard's Top Twenty. The tune had a pop beat, The
Cash Box reported; the lyrics "lend themselves to R&B treatment, and
the instrumentalization is hillbilly."

"He didn't even know what to
call it, for the love of Christ," snorts critic Nick Tosches, citing Haley's
comment that the Comets used country and western instruments to
play rhythm and blues, "and the result is pop music....

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Review: Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street tycoon and the secret palace of science that changed the course of World War II

Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street tycoon and the secret palace of science that changed the course of World War II by Jennet Conant
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The Manhattan Project became world famous. The Tizard Mission faded into obscurity. Only the Rad Lab veterans knew better, knew that if radar had not kept the Germans from defeating England, the war might have been over before America entered the contest. Everyone who had worked at the laboratory understood the decisive role their deadly devices had played in speeding the day of victory, and it was reflected in a remark by DuBridge that became something of an unofficial slogan, their badge of honor: “Radar won the war; the atom bomb ended it.”

This is the story of Alfred Loomis, Sr. who's scientific leanings and immense wealth brought about the strategic and critical application of radar to the Allied effort in WW II. Loomis also had a hand in fostering U-235 processing and other A-bomb presurors. This is also the story of nerds-meets-tycoons in Loomis' Tuxedo Park research facility. There is a lot of the intertwined personal lives and tragic turns some marriages took.

It seems the spark for this was some fictionalized writings from participants, including the author's grandfather. From the what-happened-to... listings in the Epilogue:

James Conant and Oppenheimer fought hard to prevent the building of the hydrogen bomb, and Conant’s feelings for Lawrence and Loomis were never the same after the loyalty hearings. As he said in his testimony, if opposition to the H-bomb made Oppenheimer a security risk, “it would apply to me, because I opposed it—as strongly as anybody else.” He left Harvard after twenty years as university president—as he wrote Kistiakowsky, “long enough to serve a sentence for youthful indiscretion”—to become high commissioner of Germany. He went on to become a leading educator and wrote widely on the need for better public education and testing “to break down social barriers.” Conant died in February 1978 and was cremated and buried in his wife’s family plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Bill Richards was also laid to rest. His son, Ted Conant, took custody of Richards’ roman à clef and the confiscated short story about the uranium bomb, which he eventually passed on to his daughter.

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Review: A History of the World in 6 Glasses

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are familiar with material-themed ages of humanity: Bronze Age, Stone Age, Iron Age, etc. This author convincingly makes an argument for Beer Age (brewing), Wine Age (fermentation), Spirits Age (distillation). Also, it is interesting that he points out the most popular beverages have general had alcohol, or caffeine -- coffee, tea, Coca-Cola. The epilogue consider the vast and impactful attraction of bottled water echoing many of the inconsistencies pointed out by Penn & Teller.

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Review: The Underwater Museum: The Submerged Sculptures of Jason deCaires Taylor

The Underwater Museum: The Submerged Sculptures of Jason deCaires Taylor by Jason deCaires Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The concept of beautifully photographed documentation of statues placed under ocean water was so intriguing that I read this in a single sitting. Initial, introductory essays relate how the author turned from scuba to sculpture before uniting these passions. Generally with an anti-establishment, anti-apathy theme, many of the figurative works are shown in various stations of transition from installation to reef transformation.

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Review: Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust

Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust by Milton Meltzer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a powerful and affecting Holocaust history due to the use of several primary sources from diaries from both sides of the death camp fence, to Judenrat meeting minutes to songs presented in the original Yiddish and English translation. The scope of the book is from pre-WW II anti-semitism to the concentration camp system to desperate uprisings.

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Review: The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Discovery That Changed the Course of History

The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Discovery That Changed the Course of History by Thomas Hager
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pulling nitrogen from the air -- "fixing" nitrogen -- to feed the world and destroy at least parts of it from explosives has long intrigued me. Much of that industro-chemical story is here while this book is really more a biography of the alchemist-like "Jewish Genius" Fritz Haber. Not only did he pull nitrogen from the air, but he brought poison gas into Germany's side in WW I and then tried to pull gold from the sea and as vainly resisted Nazi anti-Semitic laws. Also between the Wars, he From 1919 to 1923 continued to be involved in Germany's secret development of chemical weapons. He seemed to be a proud, innovative, visionary, misguided patriot.

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Review: Code Name Nimrod

Code Name Nimrod by James Leasor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Also published as The Unknown Warrior, this purports to be the true story of Stephen Rigby, a.k.a. Stefan Rosenberg and “Nimrod”, is a German Jew by birth. He is chosen for a secret and dangerous part in the deception plans to persuade the Germans that the D--Day invasion would happen near Calais and not in Normandy. His secret mission saw him dropped in France, pursued by both the Resistance and the Germans, and eventually briefing in person first Rommel and then Hitler before escaping to return to British forces.

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Review: The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals-and Other Forgotten Skills

The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals-and Other Forgotten Skills by Tristan Gooley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The author did a talk on his book just walking distance from my home. While I missed the event, it made me aware of the book. Come to learn, it was not a local author but a globetrotting walker who has walked from Edinburgh to London and over days with natives in some Asian wilds. Gooley's years of experience coalesces celestial navigation, geological clues reaching back to the Ice Age, animal behavior in sight and sound, trees pushed back by the harsher Northern weather, and more. Even for someone just interested in a walk of a few miles or curious about the regularity of the moon, this book holds a wealth of details applicable to ones on backyard, especially the backyards of North America and England on both sides of the upper Atlantic.

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Review: Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first took this in shortly after the audiobook became available. I noticed I somehow did not record a review for it. Since I recollected so much enjoying it, I decided to give it another read. I really like the narration by Bob Balaban while I find what I really like the most -- the wireless messages about fleeing murderer Hawley Crippen -- is really a brief final act to the book. Most of the content is really about entrepreneur inventor Marconi. I say "entrepreneur inventor" because like Edison Marconi relied on instinct, trial-and-error, and perseverance combined with a business acumen. This is unlike, say, Tesla, who had the science and innovation without the business mind. Anyway, like Edison couldn't see past DC, Marconi was almost blinded by his adherence to long waves, etc. However, while some of his tech could have been improved with basic science, he know how to patent and fight for market share with his competitors.

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Review: Krieg dem Kriege! Guerre à la Guerre! War against War! Oorlog aan den Oorlog!

Krieg dem Kriege! Guerre à la Guerre! War against War! Oorlog aan den Oorlog! by Ernst Friedrich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This indictment on war is a radicalist pacifist's attack on militarism based largely on WW I photographs. The material, mostly visual, is basically three acts: I don't start children off with war games, II photographs of the horrors of war often contrasted with morale-boosting shots, and III the ravages left behind in mutilated faces and full cemeteries.

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Review: The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump

The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump by Andrew G. McCabe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Threat: How the FBI Protects America... is less about FBI methods than McCabe's experiences living out his shortened career under Trump's Reign of Terror. There are revealing experiences here naturally reflecting those of effective predecessor James Comey in A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Between both we see a world where Trump goes so far to try and truncate FBI investigations that may get close to his campaign and business management they will turn a career-destroying vindication on FBI leadership.

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Review: The Magic Of Theater

The Magic Of Theater by David Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This books is the transcriptions of a cavalcade of theatre stars interviewed before a student audience. They discuss their craft and the realities of their industry in time and place: film vs. stage, the limiting nature of high Broadway seat prices, and how to exhibit emotion on command. Unfortunately, the text is laid out in an unusual way for Q&A: there are no line breaks between questions and not typographical indication of when the interview is paraphrasing, describing, or being quoted. (We really have no idea exactly what question is being asked.) While reading this book, I was attending a conference and Rachel Levy of the Mathematical Association of America mentioned that "everyone has a math story." This primed, I noticed apropos of nothing, three actors alluded to their math story without prompting:

Eli Wallach --

"I hated mathematics," Eli said, "and I knew I could get out of trouble by acting my way out."

Judith Ivey --

"I was a painter long before I ever began acting," said Judith. "But obviously expressing myself artistically was my bent rather than mathematics."

and then more generally but with no less negativity:

Zoe Caldwell --

"I am hopeless with numbers, so I choose to ignore their existence, I don't learn telephone numbers. I don't even know my own. I don't take them into my life."

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Review: Anthem

Anthem by Ayn Rand
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ayn Rand tried so hard to be so emphatic and lacking in subtlety in creating her heavy-handed tales of state conspiracies in hyper-socialism that this novel lacks anything moving or alive. This is fiction as screen, not story.

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Review: The Nashville Sound

The Nashville Sound by Paul Hemphill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This bit of investigative journalism on Nashville reeling from the rise of rock with Music Row largely vacants and in decline touts itself on the cover name-dropping luminaries covered here including George Jones, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, etc. However, much more ink is spent on and insight gathered from such key figures slugging away in the trenches of transformation such as Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, Billy Dilworth, and John Wesley Ryles. This is a must read for the serious fan of post-hillbilly popular country music.

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