Recent Reading
My fortnightly summary of what I’ve been reading and listening to.
Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, And the Exploration of the Red Planet by Steve Squyres
E-book on my iPod.
This was an interesting-enough look at the development of the Mars rovers from the point of view of one of the chief scientists involved. The structure of the book was a bit loose, though, being made up from of a variety of different sources and sets of notes which Squyres made through the long years of development and acceptance of the proposal by NASA through to the launch and successful landing of both rovers. I would have liked more about the actual day to day operation of the rovers on the surface of Mars, I think.
And the e-book is missing the fascinating photographs actually taken by the rovers – all we get is a line drawing of one of the rovers. This is one case where I think I would rather own a ‘dead-tree’ version of the book. I’m guessing that many non-fiction works are going to suffer in the same way on the iPhone/Touch – though they might be fine on the Kindle or Sony Reader.
A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell
E-book on my iPod.
Another in Rendell’s series about Chief Inspector Wexford. Here the mystery revolves around the life of the victim – an unknown middle-aged woman found stabbed in Kingsbridge. The mystery is not so much about the murder but about who this woman was and what kind of a life she had been living.
While entertaining enough, I guessed the solution of the mystery when I was only about half-way through the book, which spoilt it a little for me, though I kept reading to see how it all panned out. Not Rendell’s best book, but well worth reading anyway.
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Hardcover, from the library
Sacks continues to write fascinating stuff about the human brain and the human mind. If you haven’t read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat you must!
While this work isn’t quite so varied and entertaining, it is still absorbing reading. Sacks focuses on how music seems deeply embedded into the human brain, and the various conditions which can occur when things go wrong (or right!) with these regions of the brain. His discussion of the plight of those suffering Williams-Beuren syndrome, in which a sequence of genes has been omitted on one chromosome, is absolutely fascinating and moving. Such people are, by ‘normal’ standards, intellectually severely disabled; but their ‘musical intelligence’ can be astonishing and their musical skills very striking.
Sacks also discusses in some detail how music can liberate or transform the lives of those with a variety of different neurological problems, from patients with Parkinsonism, through Tourettes sufferers, to those who have had strokes.
I have learnt a good deal both about music and about the brain from this book.
Current Reading
I’m currently part-way through:
- The Great War – Breakthroughs by Harry Turtledove (Audiobook)
(I’ve finished the previous volumes of this trilogy, but will wait until I’ve finished the whole series before reviewing it here) - Secret Asset by Stella Rimington (E-Book)
- South by Sir Ernest Shackleton (E-Book)
