What are You Reading Now?
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Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table (audio dramatization by the BBC).
Back to my Aubrey/Maturin series ahead of this week's monthly Shipmates book club meeting. We're up to #12 in the series, The Letter of Marque. Such a fantastic set of stories.
A biography on Robert Crumb by Dan Nadel.
"The Official John Wayne Handy Book For Men" by James Ellis.
"Mars and Its Canals" by Percival Lowell, 1907. At least MY copy is 1907... The first edition was 1906, but that just takes too many dollars. My 1907 is the second printing, ex-library, and a little rough. But it's all there and solidly intact.
I kind of expected Lowell to be a more entertaining writer, due to his spectacular theories and conclusions. However, maybe because the existence of his canals were already seriously doubted by many mainstream astronomers, he wrote this book rather pedantically, with a number of statistical analyses, etc. He could spend several pages describing one double canal. From a historical standpoint though, the book is interesting, and the color illustrations of telescopic views of Mars are delightful. However, I wouldn't recommend wading through this thing if the history of astronomical observation isn't a turn-on for you.
My biggest, and most surprising, takeaway? There have been a number of studies done and articles written on WHY Percival Lowell saw and mapped his non-existent canals in such detail. He wasn't a liar or a fraud. He "saw" these things. He described how sometimes they were invisible, but other times they might glimmer into view, Like the finest thread of spider web if only partially, and momentarily. Once, as I waded my way toward the end of the book, I got online to download any better maps I might find than those in the book. Not much luck. But I did print off a rather spectacular photograph of Mars taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Looking at it I SAW SOME OF THE CANALS I'D BEEN READING ABOUT! Just barely... Were they there? Of course not. But I was looking hard, and after reading hundreds of pages of this stuff, I was seeing what I was looking for. I believe the same thing happened to Percival Lowell. He'd become obsessed with his canals, looked for them at the limits of his visual abilities, (which were indeed superior to most people's,) and he "saw" what he was looking for, although they existed only in his mind.
I kind of expected Lowell to be a more entertaining writer, due to his spectacular theories and conclusions. However, maybe because the existence of his canals were already seriously doubted by many mainstream astronomers, he wrote this book rather pedantically, with a number of statistical analyses, etc. He could spend several pages describing one double canal. From a historical standpoint though, the book is interesting, and the color illustrations of telescopic views of Mars are delightful. However, I wouldn't recommend wading through this thing if the history of astronomical observation isn't a turn-on for you.
My biggest, and most surprising, takeaway? There have been a number of studies done and articles written on WHY Percival Lowell saw and mapped his non-existent canals in such detail. He wasn't a liar or a fraud. He "saw" these things. He described how sometimes they were invisible, but other times they might glimmer into view, Like the finest thread of spider web if only partially, and momentarily. Once, as I waded my way toward the end of the book, I got online to download any better maps I might find than those in the book. Not much luck. But I did print off a rather spectacular photograph of Mars taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Looking at it I SAW SOME OF THE CANALS I'D BEEN READING ABOUT! Just barely... Were they there? Of course not. But I was looking hard, and after reading hundreds of pages of this stuff, I was seeing what I was looking for. I believe the same thing happened to Percival Lowell. He'd become obsessed with his canals, looked for them at the limits of his visual abilities, (which were indeed superior to most people's,) and he "saw" what he was looking for, although they existed only in his mind.
From SETI to nuclear winter to second-hand smoke to global warming.
Is this what science has become?
Aliens Cause Global Warming
By Michael Crichton
Is this what science has become?
Aliens Cause Global Warming
By Michael Crichton
It's a hell of a read. I'm astounded that TSR managed to stay in business as long as it did.
Has anyone read any of Ingersoll Lockwood books? I think I might read The Last President.
Currently reading No Place To Hide. If any of you served in Iraq, it will remind you of a lot you may have forgotten (small things like Burger King, or little details of LSA Anaconda).
Currently reading No Place To Hide. If any of you served in Iraq, it will remind you of a lot you may have forgotten (small things like Burger King, or little details of LSA Anaconda).
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