Jennifer

A life-long devout Jew, Herman Wouk seeks to reconcile the unreconcilable. His narrative is anchored by three meetings with Richard Feynman wherein the physicist becomes increasingly interested in Wouk’s point of view. Wouk’s Feynman is not a consistent with the descriptions of others who knew him and seems to accept Wouk’s assertions without the questions one would expect a scientist to ask. As for his own faith, Wouk seems more to embrace the traditions of his upbringing and heritage than to articulate a certainty in the existence of the God engaged in the lives of his creations.

Savoring his major works and the resulting adulation, Wouk too often drifts to topics unrelated to either science or religion. He is a good writer and his ramblings provide a pleasant, though somewhat incoherent, diversion.

A fun listen that requires a greater suspension of disbelief than most "science fiction." Definitely a good road trip choice.

Robert K. Massie more than delivers on the promising title of this sweeping book. Massie presents an intense man with the vision, the autocratic means, and the personal perseverance to pull his nation into the modern world. Fascinating detours include descriptions of the histories of the powers with which Peter the Great interacts, summaries of the international issues that concerned them, and descriptions of the social and economic conditions of the day. Presented from the perspective of Eastern Europe, the early eighteenth century becomes something more than British and French concern over the Spanish succession. The end of this lengthy exposition left me longing for more.

The excellence of Massie???s prose was unfortunately undermined by Frederick Davidson???s pompous reading. I would have expected a professional narrator to moderate his non-standard pronunciation of words like clerk (not clark) and issue (not issssssue). More egregiously, Davidson seems wholly incapable of providing character voices for quotations: even Peter the Great is rendered in a child-like, even effeminate, falsetto.

Darwin changed the way we think about the world. Written in the dense, lightly-punctuated style of the nineteenth century, his book is difficult to read. Fortunately, David Case provides the vocal punctuation needed to make this impressive work accessible.

Darwin's central thesis is that "As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be NATURALLY SELECTED. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form."

Charles Darwin argues against the commonly held notion that species were ???individually created??? by pointing to the effectiveness of ???methodical selection??? in modifying plants and animals under domestication. Although nineteenth century scientists knew little about the mechanism of inheritance, they knew one existed and how to use it to select for desirable attributes. Darwin asserts that,
1. In the ???economy of nature,??? all creatures compete for the scarce resources that enable them to survive and procreate.
2. Reproduction introduces small, but random, changes to the traits of individuals.
3. If those random changes are favorable, the individual is more likely to survive and procreate (thereby preserving the change in future generations).
4. Thus, complex changes are due to ???the slow and gradual accumulation of slight, but profitable, variations??? over a very long interval of time.

Although Darwin refers to his book as an ???abstract,??? he provides extensive detailed examples based on his own work and numerous authorities known to him. His refutes numerous arguments against evolution by pointing to the paucity of the geological record and demonstrating the importance of traits that do not appear to be related to survival or procreation.

Although I cannot claim to have followed every strand of his complex reasoning, I am impressed with his comprehensive approach to identifying and addressing potential objections to his theory. I am also impressed with his scrupulous citation of sources from which his data comes.

Ayn Rand???s mid-fifties parable about the loss of individual rights resonates through the decades. It is a big book with big characters who have big ideas. The line between good (individualism) and evil (collectivism) is clearly drawn. The good guys are clear-eyed and attractive; they spartan in both body and speech. The bad guys are slack-jawed, have soft bodies, and tend to babble. Scott Brick???s narration reflects the tone of the story, making it an enjoyable listen.

The purpose of the story is to illustrate a philosophy that is summarized in Galt???s three-hour speech, which is the least enjoyable, the least realistic, and most important part of the book. Since it appears at the end of Part 7, you can skip through it easily. Whether you listen to the speech or not, it is the portion of the book that begs to be read and analyzed. I encourage you to download it from the web and parse it into assumptions, assertions, and conclusions.

Ayn Rand???s philosophy rests on the notion that individuals must decide matters for themselves and that disagreements are due to differences in the premises on which their conclusions are based. If you accept her conclusion that laissez-faire capitalism is the ideal economic system, make sure that you understand the premises on which that conclusion is based. Would you fare better if the bankers who brought you the housing crisis were wholly unfettered? How effectively would Rand???s industrialists function without a public educational system (which is not within the scope of her limited government)? Who would build the roads or inspect the food supply?
Atlas Shrugged is an important book that should be read (or listened to) by anyone concerned about the role of government in the lives of its citizens. However, the listener does Rand a disservice by accepting her views rather than making a conscious and personal judgement about the philosophy she presents.

This is a book that needs an open-minded reading (or hearing) from every Christian who claims that those who disagree with their views have simply failed to open their heart and mind to the Holy Spirit.
Although certain of books of the Bible claim to report divine revelations, the Bible makes no overall claim of its own inerrancy. Most people agree that the Bible was written by many authors at many different times. Decisions about which writings qualify as scripture was made long after the lifetimes of the authors. This is true of the Old Testament as well as the New; though this book focuses on the later.

Bart Erhman presents a clear and compelling case for the proposition that traditional understanding of who wrote the books of the New Testament is incorrect and that many of them include false authorship claims (which makes them forgeries). Use of this highly pejorative (though entirely accurate) descriptor serves to pull the reader out of the complacency with which the uncertain authorship of the text is often approached. Acknowledging that we do not have original texts of any of these writings, Ehrman points to the oldest of the surviving copies to conclude that they were well educated in Greek, not the Aramaic-speaking disciples with first-hand knowledge of Jesus that they claimed to be. Additionally, they address theological issues that arose decades, if not centuries, after the death of their purported authors.

Ehrman does not limit his analysis to those books included in the New Testament canon; he also reviews writings that were rejected expressly because they were thought to be forgeries. His conclusion is unavoidable: applying the same standards of veracity to biblical texts as we would to any other work, we cannot accept the teachings of much (but not all) of the New Testament.

The title implies a look at what needs to be done to send a manned mission to Mars, a subject barely skirted in this often-entertaining historical summary of the challenges of weightless travel in confined space. Mary Roach explores the difficulties of eating, defecating, and mating in a zero-gravity environment with the excessive enthusiasm of your typical middle schooler. I would have preferred a little less discussion of how pornography has depicted zero-gravity sex and a little more discussion of how artificial gravity might be generated or why it would be impractical to do so. A discussion of speed limitations and alternative launch strategies might also have enhanced the book.

Most of these stories are pleasant little allegories, but the tender-hearted might want to skip the one about the bear and the one about the crow.