*** The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall

Using simple models for how we can influence others in our network, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread shows how ideas can spread, including misinformed ones. The authors are professors of philosophy of science so there are many scientific examples, but not just that. And unlike Connected, this book’s diagram are pleasantly laid out and therefore much more understandable. The demonstration of how propagandists can spread fake news is particularly chilling.

The weakest portion of the book is the (very short) one with solutions to the problem. The first encourages scientists to create joint studies, which is a lovely idea, but pretty unrealistic considering the pressure to publish, I think, and the others are no more likely to happen.

** The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy

The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography is an impressionistic memoir consisting of discrete moments of the author’s life, in no particular order, with some gems, as when a store owner belatedly realizes that he ran out of the only kind of popsicles her dying mother liked or when she finds, in an emergency, “I had no choice but to have energy”. But it will probably appeal especially to readers and writers, as she mixes in many reflection about writers that can only make sense if you have experience with the writers yourself.

 

* Connected by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives  explores how our ability to form tight networks makes us susceptible to mass hysteria, contagious suicides, or losing weight together. It also shows how understanding networks can help fight STDs or smoking.  Too bad the illustrations of said networks are poor ! Also, with a 2009 copyright the influence of online networks is presented as a new thing, worthy of consideration. Indeed.

** The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke

 

All is not well in New Iberia, LA, as corpses pile up, grotesquely arranged as elaborate tarot cards. The New Iberia Blues stars a long-time detective, with PTSD from Vietnam, several dead wives, and a conviction that evil is to be expected. There are ghosts, mob killers, severely abused children, crooked cops. The plot is twisted and mostly very, very dark. Too dark for me!

*** My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

My Sister, The Serial Killer kills her boyfriends, lots of them, and her sister helps clean up. Her sister is a nurse, and as she takes care of a comatose patient, she just has to tell someone. Who better than the near-dead patient?

It’s all very funny, despite the bodies and the patients!

** A Dangerous Woman by Susan Ronald

Florence Gould, as portrayed in A Dangerous Woman: American Beauty, Noted Philanthropist, Nazi Collaborator – The Life of Florence Gould is a fascinating, if often repulsive woman whose avowed quest for money succeeded beyond her early dreams, I’m sure, as she became fabulously rich by cleverly leveraging her second husband’s money into hotels, casinos, and collaboration with the Nazis. She managed to work around that, too, and keep up her status as a philanthropist and donor to the Met in New York (perhaps recycling her ill-gotten paintings there?)

The book spends a lot of time trying to untangle a money-laundering scheme she was involved in during WWII, but the rest flows better. Today, she would be the head of Enron, perhaps?

** The Last Lobster by Christopher White

 

The reproductive cycle of the lobster depends, a lot, on the temperature of the water, which is why there are no more lobsters off New York City but the Maine fisheries are booming, or at least they were, as Canadian waters warm up, too.  The Last Lobster: Boom or Bust for Maine’s Greatest Fishery? goes fishing with the Maine lobstermen (the rare women doing that job call themselves lobstermen, too), explains the rather long supply chain from them to our plates, and desserts about climate change. I most enjoyed the visits with the lobstermen. It’s pretty rough sailing, tough and dangerous work, and it also starts ungodly early.

It’s also clear that placing reasonable limits on fishing would help everyone, and some cities have tried to implement local regulations that work surprisingly well, at least if the water temperature would stay constant. And lobstermen have done well expanding their reach into the supply chain, which requires ingenuity and very different skills than those required on the boat.

** Off The Charts by Ann Hulbert

Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies is a rather depressing book, as it turns out that child prodigies do not always turn out to have remarkably successful lives in the long run, or at least rarely manage to have lives remarkable as their early promises–and invariably face very rough transitions to adulthood. (So enjoy your entirely un-remarkable children!)

The author chose to mostly tell the lives of various prodigies, mostly 20th-century Americans from a variety of disciplines including science, literature, and art (no sports, interestingly), but she has very little commentary about what happens so them, or how parents or society could help them. No surprisingly, it’s very difficult to raise a prodigy, and many parents succumb to the lure of fame, for themselves as well as their child. And when adolescence comes, their children often violently reject them and find themselves adrift since they do not have a peer group to support them, having led such different lives.

** Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered presents twin stories of two struggling families, in different centuries, living in the same house, or so they think, in what was created as a  utopian subdivision (but probably “utopian” mostly for the pockets of the developers). The contemporary family suffers from multiple ills, from the lack of good academic jobs to an ailing grandfather and the sudden death of a young mother, and the story is well told, but still strange in parts. Why would loving parents, even distracted by a job loss, not ask their young adult daughter why she returned abruptly from a year abroad? Why would they not at least guess about her predicament? And why would a young father, even distraught, casually abandon his baby to his parents? There are no good answers in the story.

The other story is of a fascinating woman who pursued a learned correspondence with Darwin (of On the Origins of the Species fame), and clearly the book was crafted to highlight that story. I kept finding that the handoffs between the two stories felt a little overdone, so the book did not quite come together as it could have.

*** P is for Pterodactyl by Raj Haldar , Chris Carpenter, et al.

I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed a children’s book on the blog (well, Harry Potter, but that’s for big kids!) and I’m so happy to recommend a very wonderful picture book, perfect for kids and adults who wonder how English spelling got so screwed up. You will discover G for gnocchi, T for tsunami, and of course K for Knight, with appropriately silly illustrations and commentaries. A gem.