Although I think most people associate Buddhism with India, it has also historically had a strong presence in China, and it is because of China that The Diamond Sutra ended up on my reading list. When I picked it up, the only thing I knew about it was that a copy of it was the oldest existing printed book. The information at the front informed me that it was a Buddhist text, and that it was going to tell me about enlightenment. With that, I went into one of the shortest books I've read in a very long time.
Norse Mythology Review
As you know if you've been following along with the weekly reviews for awhile, I've been spending a lot of time reading this past year or so books that deal with either myth or ancient history, whether its the mythology of Iceland or Tolkien, and that has led me to my own thoughts about mythology and history, including a rapidly growing novel that draws from such ideas and formats for much of its inspiration. In many ways, Gaiman's Norse Mythology feels like a similar project, a retelling of old myths in a new way. Instead of telling a new story inspired by those older sources, Gaiman actually retells a sampling of real, classic myths.
Intergalactic Update 2021
established a social media presence. Granted, that’s only through GoodReads, for the moment, but it’s a (painful) start. If you’re tired of reading my book reviews here on the site, you can also find them posted on GoodReads, along with a list of books I’m intending to read, and a progress bar for books I’m currently reading.
Fantastic Voyage Review
I came across this particular text when I was browsing through an actual bookstore, and added it to my list almost entirely because of the author on the cover; everything I've read of Asimov's, from his Robot books, to two massive compilations of his short stories, to Foundation, which is one of my most frequently referenced books, has been enjoyable, so I figured I was pretty safe to add Fantastic Voyage to my reading list, even though the description didn't sound very compelling to me. It's surprising, therefore, that I mostly found this story disappointing.
Einstein’s Fridge Review
This is as much a history book as it is a science book, so it strongly appealed to my polymath tendencies (I should really write a post about the polymath/Renaissance Man concept). In fact, if I were going to teach an introductory course on thermodynamics, or wanted to introduce someone to the topic, I would highly recommend this book, rather than using a more traditional textbook.
Eight Amazing Engineering Stories Review
Recently, I've been twitching for a more rigorous intellectual challenge for the science and engineering side of me, which has led to me researching the millennium problems, designing scientific experiments, and adding books like Eight Amazing Engineering Stories to my reading list. In other words, I was rather looking forward to this as an interesting and in-depth look at a selection of technologies and the stories of how they came to be. Unfortunately, it turns out that what I consider in-depth is a little different from what people writing a companion book for a series of YouTube videos considers in-depth; so yes, I have to admit that I found this book a little disappointing, and am glad that it only took me a couple of days to read, but that does not mean you should stop reading this review, or even that you shouldn't read the book. Let me explain.
Bloodline Review
Not to be confused with Bloodline, by Conn Iggulden, which we reviewed last year. I'm sure that won't confuse the search algorithms for the site at all. This happens to also be the first book whose title is not strongly reflected by a component in the book; the closest I came up with for the name's inspiration was a vision Lindon has at almost the end of the novel. All of that, however, is getting ahead of ourselves; the relevancy of the title was far from the only thing different about this latest instalment in the Cradle series (I will link to the reviews for the previous books in the series at the bottom of the post).
Herodotus’s Histories Review
The Histories themselves are split up into nine books, which more or less focus on the Greco-Persian conflicts of that time period, with numerous digressions to talk about the history of Egypt, Babylon, or other places that come up.
Dragon’s Blood Review
There have been so many different takes on dragons over the years (and, indeed, centuries), and I have read so many different books about dragons, that you would think that I would eventually get tired of them, or stop finding books that have anything really original to add to the topic. You might think that, but you would be wrong; it seems that there will always be more stories to tell about these majestic creatures in all of their various forms, which for some reason loom so large in our imaginations. Dragon's Blood is another fine contribution to the massive body of human literature on the compelling subject of dragons.
Inherit the Stars Review
Every time I pick up one of these classic-style science fiction novel, like Ringworld or Double Star, I find myself saying that a) I should read these sorts of books more often, and b) I wish that books like these were still written today.
IGC Publishing 