Hi friends,
February is always my least favorite month. Usually, we’ve been sick all winter, and by the time you get to February, there’s still a lot of winter and sickness to deal with. This February, we had 2-3 different viruses that circulated in our household, including a stomach bug that made me take some time off work. I did use that time to read a wonderfully escapist fantasy romance that I’ll review below. Hopefully March means warmer weather and fewer illnesses.
Let me know what you think of these books, and if you have suggestions for further reading.
Best,
Tonya
Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure by Vaclav Smil
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Recommendation: maybe
Review: I’ve read a lot of Smil’s popular books in the past, but this one didn’t particularly impress me. Smil details a lot of failed invention and innovations including some that have never come to pass like commercial fusion energy, to some that were marketed but weren’t successful like supersonic flight. I think he’s trying to make the point that technological innovation never precedes as fast or as expected, and that we shouldn’t rely on it to save us from climate change and the other problems that humanity’s dealing with. I guess that’s a good point, but Smil also doesn’t explain or advocate for what he thinks should be done. Bit disappointing.
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: I’ve been reading this book for a few minutes before bed every night for a year. It’s quite relaxing. I’ve wanted to read this since I saw the musical Hamilton several years ago, and I kept hearing the soundtrack from that musical playing in my head as I read. The thing that’s fun about historical biographies like this is that you don’t get to just do a deep dive into the life of one person, but you get a remedial history lesson about the time period that they lived. In this case, this was a good reminder of some of the details of the revolution and constitutional convention. Hamilton had a knack for being present at a lot of really significant events, and that makes for a great and interesting read. I understand why he’s so divisive as well. He was loud-spoken and opinionated and had lots of political enemies while he was alive that tried to bury his legacy after his untimely and early death. In addition, he was a hypocrite and responsible for the first sex scandal in American politics. Unlike sex scandals today though, this one did legitimate damage to his political career. We’ll never know the answer to one of the great questions that this book poses: if Hamilton hadn’t died early in a duel, what course would American politics had taken? To be honest, at that point in his life, his political career was effectively on hold as he’d fallen out with Jefferson’s ruling party and his own party had practically dissolved, but who knows? Hamilton, of all people, was always one to defy expectation. I highly recommend for those interested in the constitution and American history.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde #2) by Heather Fawcett
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: This is the newly released second book in a series of unknown length starring a socially-awkward Oxford professor of dryadology and her exiled fairy king romantic interest. I enjoy a good fantasy romance. They’re one of my favorite forms of entertainment and escape, and Fawcett has created one that has compelling and deep characters, a well-thought out world, an interesting mystery fueling the plot, and just the right amount of romance between our two leads. The plot in this one is pretty straight forward: we’re looking for a back door to Wendell’s, the aforementioned exiled fairy king, fairy kingdom. Emily is also wrestling with Wendell’s proposal from the first book. We also get two brand new characters: Emily’s niece and student assistant, and her boss. These four round out our fairy door hunting group, and it’s a crazy fun adventure. I particularly enjoyed this one because unlike the first, Emily gets to do the saving this time, proving again her own brilliance and resolving the plot at the same time. I highly recommend for fans of the first and those who just like the fantasy or romance genres.
How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between by Bent Flyvberg and Dan Garnder
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: As an auditor of large government acquisition projects, I was not surprised to learn that projects with cost estimates over $1 billion are much more likely to overrun their cost and schedule plans than not. Flyvberg studies these large projects and consults on those that have gone horribly wrong. There were quite a few familiar stories and some that were new to me but had unsurprising outcomes. One was the building of the emblematic Sydney opera house that was years late, hundreds of percent over budget, and effectively ended the career of the lead architect. Another was NASA’s own James Webb Space Telescope that I was involved with reviewing before its launch. There are a few good news stories that Flyberg highlights as he explains his steps for keeping large projects on track. First: plan your project. This seems like a no-brainer, but I know from experience that a lot of projects fudge this step and plunge right into building things without nailing down a design. Second: assemble the right team, ideally one with experience doing what you’re trying to do. Third: develop an actual accurate estimate. Flyberg talks about how he’s heard project managers admit to effectively lying about their cost estimates to get their projects approved. He writes this like it’s some massive surprise, but I just assumed it was a commonly accepted way of doing business. Flyberg goes into more detail about each step and provides great examples of projects that screwed things up and those that got things right. I highly recommend for anyway considering a big project.
What the River Knows (Secrets of the Nile #1) by Isabel Ibanez
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: This was the second fantasy romance I read this month, and I read it while recovering from a stomach bug on a sick day. It was a wonderful, escapist read. It hits all of the classic fantasy romance tropes and executes them really well. There’s a mystery to solve, an enigmatic and smoldering love interest, and our female lead who sets off into the unknown to settle the mystery of her parent’s sudden deaths. The story has a few plot twists, some of which I saw coming, and one particularly juicy one at the very end that sets us up perfectly for the sequel. Argentinian Inez Olivera follows her parents footsteps to the mysterious late-19th century Egypt, currently under British colonial rule. Along the way she meets Whit, her uncle’s assistant responsible for shipping her back to Argentina post-haste. As you can imagine, that’s not what happens, and we set off on a rolicking adventure to discover Cleopatra’s tomb and the source of a mysterious magic. I highly recommend for any fans of the fantasy romance genre.
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: I spend most of my working days evaluating NASA’s space exploration projects, including those that are intended to help humanity settle the Moon and Mars. Spoiler alert: this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. In this book, the Weinersmith’s evaluate the technical, legal, and sociological issues of space settlement. While most space settlement enthusiasts are focused on moving mass and making bigger and bigger rockets under the assumption that everyone should support the settlement of other planets, the Weinersmith’s ask: should we really settle space? They assess all the commonly circulated reasons for settling space: a plan B for humanity if Earth goes kaput, economic gains, and the chance to build a utopian society, among others. They take a professionally skeptical step back and determine that none of these reasons really pass the sniff test. They focus on the legal and social issues that are rarely discussed in space settlement circles including the ethics of baby-making in space, the lack of any firm legal structure for extracting space resources, and the likeliness of abuse when your employer also controls your oxygen supply. I really enjoyed this book, and I came to the same conclusion that the Weinersmith’s do: we should take the wait and go big approach to space settlement. I agree, and I definitely won’t be the first to volunteer for any future space settlements.
Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: I follow Bearup on YouTube where she makes delightful content analyzing some of my favorite cinematic sword fights including Wesley vs. Inigo in The Princess Bride and the throne room brawl in The Last Jedi. This book is an adaptation of a series of shorts Bearup did two years ago telling the story of an author and her uncharacteristic fantasy heroine. Our author Caroline struggles to get her fantasy heroine and hero, Rosamund and Leo, to act out all of the classic romance tropes as she sends them on a diplomatic quest to end a war that should create the classic opportunities for an enemies-to-lovers story. However, 36-year old, widowed mother of two, Rosamund, has her own priorities, and falling for her Captain escort is very low on that list. The book has two separate storylines: Caroline’s in the real world as she deals with problems at work and her own feelings for her hot editor. The other is Leo and Rosamund in the fantasy world. Caroline frequently breaks into the action of their plot to have funny and exasperated conversations with her characters, mostly centering on their refusal to follow the romance tropes she’s thought of for them. I mostly liked the meta story telling aspect, but sometimes I did find that it interrupted a good scene. I honestly would have liked just the Rosamund and Leo story by itself. I’m not sure that Caroline’s plot added a lot to the story… In any case, it was a fun and fast read. I always like a good fantasy romance.
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be The First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: This is a book about climate change. Ritchie argues that while the situation of our climate is dire and getting worse, this is by no means the end of the world. She talks about the great work that’s being done to solve some of the largest environmental problems our planet faces including a warming climate, deforestation, species loss, ocean trash, and overfishing. She doesn’t argue that everything’s good and will be solved, but she does talk about the people who are actively solving these problems and the progress that has been made. This was a refreshing change from the usual doom and gloom story that we hear. She does a good job balancing hopefulness while emphasizing the work remaining to be done in each of the areas she explores. I highly recommend for everyone living on this changing and evolving planet. I particularly liked this quote, “As the environmentalist, Stewart Brand, put it: ‘We are as gods, we might as well get good at it.”’ |
| Chloe's art was featured in the district art show! We love seeing the amazing pieces she creates. |
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| Grandma always buys them pretty, matching Easter dresses. |
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| We had fun sledding! |
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| I took the girls to a trampoline park on President's Day. They had a blast. We played for four hours, and they complained about being soar afterwards. They slept well that night. |
