Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
As the title suggests', this novel gives an in-depth look at the discoverer of Longitude. Or rather, the creator of a method to accurately measure Longitude. I know that for many people this already sounds like a snoozefest, but I promise Sobel does a fantastic job of making it anything but that. In school they probably brief you on the history of longitude, but I personally don't ever recall them telling us who discovered it or found a way to calculate it. More-so, it never occurred to me that it was such a huge issue to NOT know the longitude when sailing. (I know, that makes me sound like a moron but I don't ponder those things on a daily basis, to be fair.) The lack of accurate methods was leading to ships lost at sea, hundreds of deaths, starvation, etc. The need for a new method was so strong, that English Parliament set up a cash prize for whoever found the best method. This short read takes you through all of the inventors, scientists, and astronomers who attempted a run at the cash prize. From stars to clocks, the options were varied, as were the opinions of each as to what would solve the issue. John Harrison, the eventual winner, dedicated his entire life to finding the solution. Sobel delivers an interesting look at the back story to Harrison's life and accomplishments. She also touches on the people before him who sought success for the "Longitude Prize". Fellow science and history nerds should definitely give this book a go. At a short 175 pages, it's well worth the time!
Rating: 4 of 5
The Audition by Ryu Murakami
Ryu Murakami is, hands down, my all time favourite author. I began reading his books in 8th grade. Coin Locker Babies was the first I read (and still my favourite). I found him on a whim while googling the song of the same name by my favourite Japanese singer, Miyavi.
Murakami (not to be confused with the more widely known Haruki Murakami) is equal parts eclectic and eccentric when it comes to his writing style. To compare him to anybody else would be doing him a dishonour. That being said, this was not my favourite book by him. I tried to be as un-biased as possible when reading it. While it's a fairly interesting concept, his previous works have set the bar far too high. This fell short of his normal eccentric psychological views, though it did maintain the angst that he's known for. Even worse, there were parts that bordered on misogyny. As a whole, my mental palette was offended with this novel.
It follows an aging man who lost his wife some years ago, and now lives along with his teenage son and dog. At the encouragement of his friends and kid, he pursues a new wife. He decides to hold auditions for a fake movie in order to find the perfect girl (the entitlement, dear god...). Cue unoriginal story of a middle aged man falling for a much younger woman who turns out to be "not so normal".
Now, despite my bad review, I have to defend the man. He was probably busy putting more effort into "In the Miso Soup", which released the same year as this one, and is MILES better. Or maybe he just needed to get the idea out of his head onto paper, and his publisher ran with it. Who knows.
I hear there is a movie adaption, but haven't watched it. I'd recommend spending 2 hours on the film, as opposed to many more trying to crawl through this book.
Rating: 1 of 5 (sorry Murakami.....)
In the Wake of the Plague: the Black Death and the World it Made by Norman F. Cantor
The time period and events surrounding the Black Death are one of my favourites to learn about. It is both terrifying and interesting to see how this plague wiped out between 30-60% of Europe's population.
Many books about history tend to be droll, no matter how interesting the subject at hand. I blame this on the authors delivering the info as if it were a Wikipedia article. Cantor has managed to tell these events in a more interesting narrartive. However, he does tend to go off on tangents (as most history teachers I've experienced), as well as giving a little too many of his opinions with few facts to back them up. When reading this, it's better to picture it as if receiving a lecture from a historian, rather than a legitimate opinion-free novel.
Cantor covers the basics: possible causes of the plague (rats, cows...stars?!), the aftermath of Europe, and the various issues it caused within religion, wealth classes, etc. If you're expecting in-depth views on the causes of the plague, this is not the proper book for that. While he touches on it briefly, his main focus is the occurrences that were affected by the plague afterwards.
As with everything in history, it's neat to see how much these events shaped the world we know today. While this book probably won't appeal to the average reader, I can't imagine any history buff passing this up.
Rating: 3.5 of 5
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Books I'm reading for February:
Flush - Carl Hiassen
Blodletting & Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam
Going Buddhist - Peter J Conradi
A World Lit Only By Fire - William Manchester
