Bulletin Board
- Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements will be at the Siouxland Libraries Main Library on Tuesday, October 19 at 7 PM, to discuss his book. Kean, who grew up in Sioux Falls and now lives in Washington D.C., and writes for Science magazine, delves into the history and people behind the discovery and use of each element in the periodic table.
Blog Headlines of the Week
Worthwhile Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- What do you mean by a miracle? (“I believe any event we observe can be explained by natural or scientific laws. Seemingly miraculous events in history might have been explained at the time, if there had been better knowledge.”)
Bookish Linkage
- Howard Jacobson won the Mann Booker Prize for The Finkler Question while the Not The Booker Prize was shared by Lee Rourke (The Canal) and Matthew Hooton (Deloume Road). I have read none of the three.
- Meanwhile, on this side of the pond the National Book Award shortlists were announced. I’ve read none of the fiction finalists and only one of the nonfiction finalists (Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea). To make the obligatory observation: there are 13 women among the 20 nominated authors and none of the men is the author of “the novel of the century.”
- Why Hollywood can’t get the hang of science fiction.
- Speaking of Hollywood, the film rights to The Sparrow, one of my Desert Island Books, have reverted to author Mary Doria Russell.
- What if stupid bookstore patrons had to use Google? (via)
Nonbookish Linkage
- Perhaps for geeks only, but why the Singularity isn’t going to happen.
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with it’s credibility. And vice versa.
Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
