Outsight Book Reader Diary: August 2022

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Review: Goat: A Memoir

Goat: A Memoir by Brad Land
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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Monday, August 29, 2022

Review: The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party by Dana Milbank
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Friday, August 26, 2022

Review: Manhattan Transfer

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Review: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Sunday, August 21, 2022

Review: Great Calculations: A Surprising Look Behind 50 Scientific Inquiries

Great Calculations: A Surprising Look Behind 50 Scientific Inquiries by Colin Pask
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

...Can such a list be compiled without criticism for some oversight? Probably not. I encourage you to read it yourself and come up with your own necessary additions. What would you part with to keep it to fifty? For me, in a list that includes (rightly so), Archimedes’ insightful approximation of π must find room for Euler’s number e. I would even say this could replace the entry for Euler solving the Basel Problem, since that, essentially, could be a footnote to the exploration of π. Or, let it replace the valuation of annuities as calculated by Halley, better known for predicting his eponymous comet. This is the class of thoughts the book will raise with any reader, and rightly it should. The author directly tackles the subject of necessary omissions, both generally and at the conclusion of the topical chapters. The end of Chapter 8 “About Us” suggests there could have been more on DNA, modeling nervous system signal transmission and Turing’s “mathematically elegant work on pattern formation”. Of course, there are many surprising and appealing entries, such as World War II D-Day tide calculations based on work done by Lord Kelvin seven decades previous...

[Look for my entire review at MAA Reviews]

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Thursday, August 18, 2022

Review: The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time

The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time by Phil Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A delight for any movie buff, this is an alphabetical arrangement of 100 films from the so-bad-they're-good category ("Plan 9 From Outer Space") to the it-never-should-have-been-made category (Linda Lovelace's per-"Deep Throat" venture into bestiality). There are feature films, knock-offs, dud career-enders, and a 1925 version of "Wizard of Oz" previously unknown to me. Personally, I think he should have swapped out Disney's technically innovative "The Black Cauldron" with Drew Barrymore's "Doppleganger", but any list like this is subjective.

I'll be talking w/the author on my show today.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Review: The French Lieutenant's Woman

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first read this a quarter century ago and it still captivates. the first time the epigraphs that struck me I thought were those of Matthew Arnold and Tennyson's Maud. I find Clough's actually stuck with me the most. chapters 54 and 57 the "bitter north" wind and "devil take the hindmost". those drawn on Marx and Darwin and the protagonist's amateur paleontology tells me the next reading may reveal a sociological dimension whereas I still am fascinated with the tragic enigma of Sara Woodruff. i really like how Fowles breaks through the literary fourth wall to comment and make a came on on the train.

For dialogue, Fowles' characters are rooted in the 1860s, which sent me looking up archaic phrases and words. This is fun for me, and also necessary. I would have totally misunderstood a passage if I did not research to find out that "slut's wool" means "dust bunnies".

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