Eli Bendersky's website - "A City on Mars" By Kelly and Zach Weinersmith - actual discussion of building settlements on Mars occupies maybe 1% of this book. The authors have an uncanny talent of focusing on all the least interesting aspects of space exploration; whatever little is dedicated to science and engineering is fairly shallow and reeks of techno-pessimism. That said, if the aspects of space exploration that interest you most are politics, social structures, legal frameworks, labor relations and mental health - go ahead and read this book. Overall, I found it infuriatingly bad.
- "What You Are Looking For Is in the Library" Michiko Aoyama - a sweet little collection of loosely-related short stories. Just regular people living their lives in Japan; the common theme is changing circumstances and how to deal with them. I really enjoy books of this kind, and this one is very well done.
- "Is this Wi-Fi Organic?: A guide to spotting misleading science online" by Dave Farina - a valiant attempt to build up a solid scientific foundation for debunking myths (focusing mostly on alternative medicine). Unfortunately, the execution falls short. The tactic employed by the author is: explain a bunch of science at a pretty shallow level, then present some claim to debunk and then immediately jump to "this is clearly false, becasue science". Rinse; repeat. While entertaining, this isn't very convincing. From a book, I'd expect much more. For example, Simon Singh's "Trick or Treatment" is much better in this respect, because the debunking done with a lot of supporting evidence, citing relevant research and studies. The good thing I can say about this book is that I appreciate the techno-optimism and the science-first approach.
- "An imaginary tale" by Paul J. Nahin - tells the history of the discovery and initial applications of the imaginary unit - i. Very interesting book that fills an under-served niche between popular science and textbooks. The book isn't easy to go through - it requires sophisticated math, at least at the engineering undergrad level. Except the last chapter - which goes a bit off the rails with complex analysis - this background should be sufficient for the vast majority of the book, but some work will still be required. While I didn't follow through every single calculation, I really enjoyed the book overall and should try to read additional stuff by this author.
- "The Code Breaker" by Walter Isaacson - a biography of Jennifer Doudna, focusing on the discovery of CRISPR, the competition around it, the ethical implications of gene editing and COVID vaccine research. An OK book overall, with some really tedious parts; not the best Isaacson, in my experience.
- "An Immense World" by Ed Yong - secondary title "How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us"; an information-packed book with a huge scope, describing the sensing capabilities animals possess beyond the human range. Very interesting.
- "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen - familiar style and topic - the lives of the bored 19th century English gentry. I liked this book less than others by Austen I read; the characters aren't as well developed (I feel like there are too many? Austen seems to have neglected to provide distinct roles for several), and the first half of the book is fairly dull.
- "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster" by Bill Gates - a decent overview of the current state of global warming, and what it would take to avoid the worst-case scenario. This book could be much better, IMHO, if it had more depth and a coherent summary/plan. I'm also surprised by the relatively shallow coverage of nuclear (fission) power, given the importance attributed to it by Gates. Also, the coverage of carbon capture is surprisingly minimal. On the good side, I really liked the concept of "green premium" and how to factor that into economically realistic solutions. This is one of those subjects that's moving so fast, however, that it needs a fresh treatment every few years. This book is from 2020 and already some information feels stale due to the huge progress in solar deployments that's been made in the past few years.
- "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" by Stephen King - a mix of autobiography with some advice on writing creative fiction. Very good overall. King's relationship with his family is inspiring and endearing - not the usual celebrity fare. One small gripe is that the book is artificially inflated with some tangential interviews at the end, so it's actually shorter than advertised.
- "Engineering in Plain Sight" by Grady Hillhouse - the author is well-known from his YouTube channel "Practical Engineering", and this book is a text presentation of many of the topics he discusses in his videos. The writing is unmistakable in Hillhouse's enthusiastic style and the illustrations are beautiful. In all, a very nice book.
- "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky - first part of a sci-fi trilogy about space-faring humans and... spiders. Highly imaginative and fun to read.
- "Journeys North: The Pacific Crest Trail" by Barney Scout Mann - a memoir of a person thru-hiking the full PCT in 2007, and some stories about his fellow hikers. Great book.
- "The Final Frontiersman" by James Campbell - subtitle is "Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness". Very nice biography about a fur trapper family living in a remote self-built cabin in north-east Alaska. Covers a period roughly from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
Re-reads:
- "Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan
- "The count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
- "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed" by Ben Rich