The Right Stuff / Tom Wolfe

space race

If you haven’t read Tom Wolfe before,  he’s not to everybody’s taste – he’s opinionated, colourful language and a leading proponent of “New Journalism”.

The Right Stuff is, I suppose, a history book of sorts in that it deals with the beginnings of “The Space Race” but it’s mostly about the personalities involved and the (cold war) mindset of the times.  I found it a rattling good read (actually reread) ,  a little like “A Voyage for Madmen” in that it probes why the hell (male) people do the extraordinary things they do at the edges of human behaviour.  Why would a man compete ruthlessly to put himself sitting helplessly (they had no control,  the first US “astronauts” were actually chimpanzees) on top of an unstable and highly explosive (most US rockets had a lamentable record of exploding on the launchpad at that time) rocket?

And, of course, it was always a man – a (very) male red-blooded (!) man.  But what of the non-males – the females?  Because you’d never be selected to be an astronaut unless you were a “family man”.  Family man,  but with considerable licence because you were also considered hotter than a rock star with all the erm,  benefits. And it’s also the story of the wives.

This is not high literature,  it’s just a damn good read (well,  he’s a bit repetitive).

If you like it and you’ve ever wondered why there is so much crap architecture around ,  you might also also enjoy Tom Wolfe’s “From Our House To Our House”

The Carpet Makers

“The Carpet Makers” is by Andreas Eschbach,   German author of the (as yet untranslated into English) Jesus Video.

Quirky sci-fi and unusually structured – it gets intelligent, thoughtful and enthusiastic reviews on Goodreads. Without getting into spoiler detail,  a central theme is the nature of human belief.

I enjoyed it but frankly I was a bit disappointed – possibly more of a reflection on myself than the book.

Available to borrow.

The Trouble with Physics

We accept that science (unlike religion, say) is a rational, objective search for verifiable truth. It is not subject to orthodoxy

In this 2006 book, physicist/cosmologist Lee Smolin argues that this is no longer so.  It has become virtually impossible for researchers to get funding for novel research.  A small number of approaches (e.g. string theory) are the established  orthodoxy of modern physics and to stray outside these is to invite ridicule and exclusion.  This, despite the fact that these approaches are still at the speculative stage and not yet verified (indeed some are unlikely to be verifiable). Smolin makes the point that physics has not had a significant breakthrough in 30 years (and that was 12 years ago).  The true scientific approach has been subverted by a new brand of dominant and dogmatic high priests.

The book created something of a storm across the wider scientific community in many other branches of science where the same limitations have come to apply.

Smolin writes well and accessibly,  an interesting and thought-provoking read which cautions against assumptions that science is objective and free from orthodoxy

 

Summer Reading – The Rosie Project

Summer coming and some of ye may want something light. Personally, when heading to the airport I pack some worthy tomes (science, philosophy, history yadda yadda) and then read entertaining thrash and bring the tomes home unread (my brain shuts down in the sun).

Last year, I read The Rosie Project.  I think we’d all agree that bursting out laughing in public while reading a book is naff. Strictly entre nous,  this happened to me a few time while reading this book.

Was this because the narrator/hero of the tale is a mathematically inclined eccentric genius called Don? 😜 Hmm…good question.

Anyway,  as well as being light and entertaining,  I thought it clever,  witty and even somewhat thought provoking.

 

Highly Regarded Books

Our second meeting convened today with four members present.  Eugene provided bubbly and Richard offered coffee and biscuits.  The theme was:

highly regarded books we’ve tried and our good/bad experience with them

We were introduced to Richard’s 100-page Test™ which is a foolproof copyrighted and patented method for deciding if a book should be ‘highly regarded’.

Books presented and discussed at the meeting included:

Eugene presented:

• A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins 
• De Bono’s Thinking Course by Edward de Bono

Richard presented:

• From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East by William Dalrymple
• Nine Lives: In search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple
• Quarantine by Jim Crace

Don presented:

• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• Herzog by Saul Bellow
• The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Michael presented:

• The Principle of Duty: An Essay on the Foundations of the Civic Order by David Selbourne
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Other books mentioned as good reads included:

• Adventure Fiction:  The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes
• Classic Fiction: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• World History:  The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History by McNeill & McNeill
• History/Seafaring:  Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antartica 1699-1839 by Alan Gurney
• History/Seafaring:  In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

The general feeling is that this should remain a forum for a nice morning chat about books with no need to ‘keep-up’ since the volume of material discussed is already overwhelming.  The next meeting is scheduled for April 19th.

Sailing, Sea and Heroics

This is a very well written account of a most extraordinary race and the very diverse men who took part in it.

In 1968,  nobody had sailed single-handed non-stop around the world but suddenly it gripped the imagination as a thing worth doing.  Nine men set out that year onto an odyssey that would involve a traverse of the vast Southern Ocean and a rounding of Cape Horn.  Few of them were even remotely prepared – one of them had never sailed before!  Their boats were a motley collection including family cruisers and a live-aboard catamaran.

Peter Nichols gives a great account of the men themselves, the sailing and the last great “amateur” epic.  Well worth a read even if you’ve never sailed – even better if you have.

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

David Deutsch is a Professor of Physics at Oxford University, expert on Quantum Computation and proponent of the theory of the multiverse but his interests – and this book – go far outside the realm of physics and even science.

 

Why I Like it: Some books challenge your outlook – this one challenged mine more than most and in a very uplifting way.  Yes it’s a science book but also much more.  History, Philosophy, Ecology and Political Science.  Is man “A chemical scum on an average planet of a typical star on the fringes of a galaxy?” (Hawkins) – Deutsch argues convincingly that conscious beings are cosmically hugely significant.

It’s a very wide ranging book  –  some parts I’ve read with delight several time – others I’ve skimmed or not read at all.  Most of it is very accessible to the general reader – some a bit more difficult. Really interesting stuff on ecology, environmentalists, democracy, the scientific method, evolution, physics (of course), art

Above all,  this is a hugely positive book.  In fact he argues very convincingly that not only have we reason to take an optimistic approach to life but we have a duty to do so.

Really not your average science book

First Steps

The inaugural meeting of the Asynchronists convened today.  Present were David, Tony, Eugene, Richard and Don.  Michael sent his excuses: “shacked up in bed with a fever”, he claimed. The bar has been set high for future meetings.  Richard brought whiskey and Don made scones but David won universal acclaim for his “shampagne”.

The group is finding its feet and therefore much discussion concerned where each of us hopes the project will lead.  Books were central but there was clearly lots of appetite for other media (cinema, TV) and also excursions to cultural locations;  some of those mentioned included the Casino in Marino, Victor’s Way in Roundwood and Marsh’s Library (already visited by Tony and Don).  Future meetings (on the third Thursday of every month) will rotate through our homes or hopefully will involve outings to exotic locations.
In order to give a flavour of our respective tastes, everyone outlined the particular merits of a number of books they have enjoyed.  Hopefully a brief appreciation/critique of each will be added to this blog in the coming days.

Discussions were wide-ranging as they like to say after a typical Sinn Féin – DUP shindig.

Eugene liked:

• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilbur 
• In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak

Tony liked:

• Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution 1910-1922 by Ronan Fanning
• The Lunar Men: The Inventors of the Modern World 1730-1810 by Jenny Uglow

David liked:

• The War That Never Was by Duff Hart-Davis
• Defending the Rock: How Gibraltar Defeated Hitler by Nicholas Rankin
• Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State by Gotz Aly

Richard liked:

• Wolf Hall and its sequels by Hilary Mantel
• In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Don liked:

• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
• How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
• The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements by Peter Atkins
• Rats, Lice and History by Hans Zinsser
• Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped by A. Roger Ekirch

Michael phoned in to say he liked:

• The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Other books mentioned favourably included:

• The African Queen by C. S. Forester
• The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura 
• Fatherland by Robert Harris
• If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino 
• The Island that Dared – Journeys in Cuba by Dervla Murphy
• An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd