Thursday, July 14, 2011


Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

by Patton Oswalt

For a guy who usually plays the minor character that's the schlubby butt of jokes, this dude is super smart. So smart, at times, that you can almost miss the humor. I'd say he's more of a Sarah Vowell than a David Sedaris: you get the guffaws, but with seriously introspective interludes. One gets the sense that his true calling is to write for shows that are critically acclaimed cult hits but unfortunately get canceled after a few seasons (eg., Arrested Development), rather than stand-up comedy. An enjoyable and easy read that could make you pee your pants, or wax nostalgic, or a bit of both.



Cold: adventures in the world's frozen places

 by Bill Streever

I love this kind of book (literary nonfiction), but this particular one is only a moderately good example of the genre. Nothing in particular is wrong with the author's informative and evocative exploration of coldness, combining thorough knowledge with pleasant story-telling, but it just isn't cream of the crop. I'll give it a solid B-minus.


 

The Strangest Man: the hidden life of Paul Dirac, mystic of the atom

by Graham Farmelo

Somehow I got the idea that this guy, like Alan Turing, a tortured genius of the same era, was gay. I kept waiting through the whole book for the big reveal. He certainly was awkward enough with women. Alas, no dice.

This would be a tricky book to recommend. As a biography, it's well-written and holds the attention, even while being quite long. The author provides good insight into the unspoken and the strange, of which there's plenty in the life of a mathematical savant who surely would be diagnosed on the "autism spectrum" in modern day. You get a good sense of the history and politics of nuclear science around WWII, and the author consistently connects Dirac's early training in engineering and technical drafting to his uniquely visual and instinctual approach to subatomic physics, a realm of almost pure theory and maths. Unless you find all those things interesting, you'll likely have trouble slogging through; if you do, you'll be in hog heaven.