The Signal and the Noise

This very fascinating book by Nate Silver, of 538.com and NY Times fame, was recommended by Jesse and a geneticist friend, Anil Menon - and it's a winner!  The book is all about predictions - in this era of "big data", one might think that we would be able to make more and more accurate predictions, yet Silver shows that this is not the case.  He looks closely at several fields in which predictions are crucial - weather, earthquakes, climate change and others - and shows that predictions have become more accurate in some of these (weather), but not others (climate change and earthquakes) - and discusses why this is so.  The book sounds very wonky - Bayesian statistics are discussed at some length - but it is exceptionally readable and enjoyable.   Silver's writing seems like speech - it probably was dictated - and he has a whimsical sense of humor that catches you by surprise - he's laugh out loud funny.  He discusses Isaiah Berlin and hedgehogs and foxes (see Berlin's essay) to describe effective predictors (foxes) versus ineffective predictors (hedgehogs).  Really absorbing and informative.  Very highly recommended.  I plan to re-read it soon!

Gold in the Water

A very readable book that provides a realistic picture of the dedication and struggles of Olympic aspirants.  Certainly this would be of greatest interest to swimming fans, though I did not know any of the swimmers who were featured in the book, yet still found it engrossing.  The book is quite interesting in its depiction of the different swimmer-coach relationships, in the astonishing commitment that is required for such high-level training and the kinds of mental and physical events that can so easily disrupt the training.  Inevitably, it's a story of some partially-fulfilled success and a great deal of deep disappointment.  The coach who is profiled here, Dick Jochums, is totally committed to his swimmers and aims to teach them that the struggle for Olympic success is a worthy endeavor whether achieved or not, because it is essentially training for how to live one's life - with full commitment and satisfaction obtained by giving your utmost, regardless of the outcome.

The Medieval Underworld - Andrew McCall

This book was interesting, but very painful to read because McCall tortures all of his sentences. In McCall's hands, for example, the previous sentence might read: "The sentences of this book, being tortured by McCall, were very painful to read, yet interesting did I find the book."Or some such nonsense.

Anyway, the content was engaging - the book opens with the context of the Middle Ages, the theory behind Church, State, and sin, then the nature of medieval punishment (cruel and unusual), following by a closer treatment of several strains of deviants in the Middle Ages:

• bandits, freebooters and outlaws
• richman, poorman, beggarman, thieves
• prostitutes
• homosexuals
• heretics
• sorcerers and witches
• Jews

The book ends with an analysis of the medieval conception of hell.

Again, interesting, but perhaps not worth the effort.

All Tomorrow's Parties - William Gibson

I have been consuming Gibson in a strange and disjointed fashion over the past 3 years, picking up random books in his trilogies and reading them out of order. Maybe because I never stop thinking about Gibson's universe (!), this has not reduced my enjoyment of them in the slightest.

ATP follows Laney in the final stages of his drug-induced transformation, in which his uncanny nodal apprehension is perfected even as his body completely degenerates. Laney has sensed that a pivotal change is poised to occur in the universe, with the node centered around the enigmatic celebrity Harwood and idoru Rei Toei, and the new nanotechnology "fax machines" entering all Lucky Dragon convenience stores. As usual, a synopsis is unsatisfying for Gibson's stories, which sound absurd when summarized in this fashion, yet are immensely, masterfully believable.

I truly believe that Gibson has his finger on the pulse of our own history, much like Laney, and this is why his "future" is so powerfully present.

Highly, highly recommend.

Gibson's 3 Trilogies:

The Sprawl Trilogy:

• Neuromancer
• Count Zero
• Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy:

• Virtual Light
• Idoru
• All Tomorrow's Parties

The Bigend Books:

• Pattern Recognition
• Spook Country
• Zero History

A Fine and Private Place - Peter S. Beagle

My bookclub's most recent book is A Fine and Private Place, which was a quick read but did not move me very much. It was sort of a modern take on "Our Place," which I always hated:
 full of the soliloquies of the dead watching the living and trying to make sense of the meaning of life. Parts were touching and I was drawn to the character of Rebeck, a kindly old man who lives in a cemetery and can see and speak to the dead, but I would not necessarily recommend this book to others, as parts were a bit maudlin and overwrought.

The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

For whatever reason, I was never required to read this book in high school, so I read it now for the first time as an adult. It's really a masterful work, very emotionally powerful and heartbreaking. The grotesque plight of the disenfranchised Oklahoma tenant farmers is told through the eyes of the Joad family. The story recounts their struggles as they are forced to leave their land and seek work in California, where they experience the cruelty of poverty and the futility of hard work and hope in the face of an oppressive system.  I am not surprised the book was so controversial in its day, the politics are very progressive and pro-labor. The book can be graphically disturbing but it is  an important story that remains very relevant today.

Great Harry - Carrolly Erickson

Another tremendous biography by Ms. Erickson. Like Bloody Mary, Great Harry is a vibrant, engaging portrait of life in 1500s England, both the intrigue and lavish splendor of the court, and the violence, ignorance, and squalor of the poor. Ms. Erickson is a master storyteller - King Henry VIII is convincing portrayed as a highly intelligent and ambitious (though flawed) ruler, who is here shown in all his facets and stages - charismatic, handsome, idealistic and beloved in his youth, irascible, peevish, and self-important in his old age, always majestic and awe-inspiring. Hundreds upon hundreds of contemporary quotes are seamlessly woven into this tale, giving it a very rich and authentic flavor of the period and of "Great Harry," as he was called by his adoring subjects in the early years of his reign. A brilliant work, and I can't wait to read more Erickson!