Stephen Hawking

Jun3 by Rebecca

I was reading a Cracked article the other day: 14 Photographs That Shatter Your Image of Famous People, and #13 was “A Young, Cool Stephen Hawking, Standing With His Bride.”

It actually looks quite a bit like the new Q from the most recent James Bond movie, Skyfall.

It made me want to watch a Stephen Hawking biopic starring Ben Whishaw. (There’s already a biopic starring Benedict Cumberbatch that is apparently pretty good, but after watching Cumberbatch in both BBC’s Sherlock and Star Trek Into Darkness, I have trouble seeing him as young Stephen Hawking.)

Instead, I checked out a couple of biographies from my library:

Stephen Hawking: Revolutionary Physicist
By Melissa McDaniel
1994

I got this book from the library because it was short and looked like a quick overview. Something like an Encyclopedia article: less detailed, less accurate, but somewhat more reliable than Wikipedia. I wasn’t even entirely sure if this book was supposed to be in the adult section rather than the young reader section. But, no, it was properly catalogued. It’s just that it’s kind of a book for people who don’t like reading. Although it was frequently vague and/or confusing about the order of events, it was a useful overview in preparation for a more detailed biography.

Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind
By Kitty Ferguson
2012

Alas, this book was a severe disappointment. I managed to force my way all the way through it, but I suggest avoiding it. Only in retrospect did I notice that of the five reviews on the back of the book, only one of them was for the book “Stephen Hawking”—the other four for person Stephen Hawking.

Ferguson has a serious case of hero worship for Hawking and it hamstrings this book. I imagine that one doesn’t write a biography of someone without feeling strongly for or against that person, but most biographers attempt to showcase their subjects in all their humanity. Ferguson, on the other hand, does more to obscure Hawking’s existence as a human being than she does to reveal it, presenting Hawking as a godly figure, without failing or flaw.

Ferguson’s own presence is also extremely present, as she highlights her connection to Stephen Hawking, talking about how her children went to the same school as the Hawking children did, how Hawking himself reviewed the manuscript for her first biography of him, and how she met with him at his office! I can see the stars in her eyes and little hearts floating around her head. In keeping with an overblown crush, Ferguson uses the passive voice in a pattern that I believe intentionally denies Hawking culpability in anything that Ferguson didn’t approve of and attributed to him actions and decisions that Ferguson did approve of. Hawking is presented as having perfect intuition for physics such that he requires no proof and his word should be accepted as gospel. Questionable events are either denied, skimmed over, or not mentioned at all. She presents Hawking as a messiah figure—awesome, majestic, unknowable and yet all-knowing—and Ferguson as his faithful disciple—a devoted lesser being who is brought greatness by proximity.

In addition, Ferguson attempts to explain a few actual physics issues that Hawking had worked on over the years, but learning new physics concepts requires a certain amount of trust in the teacher. After, 1, obscuring and contradicting biographical events, 2, describing students as working on incomprehensible and mysterious equations, and, 3, explaining that the Pythagorean Theorem changes when used in space-time*, Ferguson lost her credibility with me for any of her physics explanations.

By the end, this book was a pure slog to get through. I definitely do not recommend it to anyone.

In comparison, I was increasingly impressed by the earlier book which was short, to the point, and presented a factual and nuanced view of the actual person, Stephen Hawking.

* The Pythagorean Theorem is a relationship between the sides of a right triangle and the hypotenuse. It is most often summarized as A² + B² = C². It would take a thorough explanation from someone I trusted to know what they were talking about before I was willing to believe that when time is a dimension, the equation suddenly becomes A² = B² + C².

The Tightrope Walker

May29 by Anna

By Dorothy Gilman

Dorothy Gilman is most well known for her Mrs. Pollifax mystery series, but I like her stand-alone books better, and I like The Tightrope Walker best of all. Actually, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore reminded me a bit of it, and I meant to mention that in the comments of Kinsey’s review, but I forgot, so I figured I might as well reread The Tightrope Walker and review it on its own. Both books feature a central character who is sort of lost and floating through life without a purpose until they get work in an eccentric shop, and both are drawn into a mystery through an artifact within the shop. How’s that for a very specific genre of books?

Both also have a sort of sincerity in the characters and the message that is not that common in modern books. I am very definitely a Gen-Xer and sincerity mostly makes me super uncomfortable (I am way more at ease with satire and irony), but in both of these books, I find it fresh, original, and charming. The Tightrope Walker is especially impressive, I think, with how it positively addresses the newish movements in feminism, psychotherapy, and new age philosophy in the 1970s. The heroine has childhood trauma that she works through with a variety of processes, but she is so optimistic about every movement and philosophy that as a reader you see the attractions of them all, even the ones that are more scorned today (the love interest is introduced early in the book doing meditation in a portable pyramid). It still reads so modern that every time I read it, I am a bit surprised when the heroine buys some bellbottom slacks.

—Anna

Hedy’s Folly by Richard Rhodes

May26 by Rebecca

Hedy’s Folly: The life and breakthrough inventions of Hedy Lamarr the most beautiful woman in the world
by Richard Rhodes
2011

Hedy Lamarr is best known for being “the most beautiful woman in the world.” She was a film actress from 1930 through 1958, and once said, “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”

Hedy was anything but stupid, although it’s amazing (and depressing) how many people discounted her intelligence. She broke into the film industry in Austria when she was 16, married at 19, escaped her controlling husband at 22, moved to Hollywood ahead of WWII, broke into the film industry in Hollywood to become a movie star, married (and divorced) five more times, raised three children, and died in January 2000. She also maintained a significant hobby of invention.

However, while I learned a great deal about Hedy Lamarr from reading this book, the title is somewhat misleading. It’s not so much the story of Hedy Lamarr as it is the story of one of her inventions: the frequency-hopping secret communication system.

Frequency-hopping is now known as spread-spectrum and is the technology that allows wireless communications to happen without interference or jamming. It’s one of the foundational technologies for cell phones, Bluetooth, military drones. And it was developed by Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil, the composer of Ballet Mecanique, in Hollywood during WWII as a bit of civilian support of the war effort.

This book tells the story of how this technology came about, starting with background on these two famous artists. While it is an interesting perspective on the two characters, it is not a comprehensive biography of either, and it was a bit disingenuous of the author to title and illustrate the book as if it were a biography of Hedy Lamarr alone.

For what it is, though, the book is well written (with the only a few wrong notes, where the author inserts a few generic homilies), quite interesting, and not that long. I recommend it.

New Development in Publishing

May22 by Anna

I just finished Rainbow Rowell’s Attachments, which Kinsey has already reviewed, so I’m just adding on that I LOVED it, and everyone should go read that, too (right after Good Omens). It was seriously one of those books where I was disappointed that it actually ended because I would have been happy to keep reading it for months.

Anyway, this is not a post about Attachments, much as I loved it. In order to get some more Rainbow Rowell after finishing the book, I immediately went on twitter and followed her, and she is currently talking about a very interesting new event in the literary world: Amazon is buying the rights to tv shows in order to try to monetize the corresponding fanfic.

It is all very new and embryonic, so no one is quite sure how it is going to work, but just that it is certainly going to change things up and it will be quite interesting to see how. Rowell and her followers bring up some very interesting points about what it means to monetize a previously free art form and to normalize a fringe culture (particularly a female-dominated creative outlet into a male-dominated media field).

Rebecca has previously given a basic overview into the world of fanfic here, and wants to think over this new development before commenting (she concurs with Rowell’s tweet, that she has many thoughts but few opinions yet on this news).

Discussing it with Rebecca, though, it occurred to me that this isn’t quite as much a sudden new development as it is being reported. Rowell brings up that every author after Stan Lee that used the character Spiderman was in essence writing fan fiction. Sherlock Holmes works continue to be published long after Conan Doyle’s death. Publishing houses have already started searching out popular fanfic authors for original works, and have even published fanfic pieces, just with changed names. So we keep moving forward at a fairly steady pace, I guess?

—Anna

Good Omens

May20 by Anna

By Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

This is less of a book review, since I’ve read Good Omens at least half a dozen times, and more of a PSA:

GO READ THIS BOOK!

Seriously, it is awesome! The basic premise is inspired by Antichrist-genre movies, such as “The Omen” (which I also love, but you don’t need to in order to love this book), but with a twist: what if the Satanic nuns, who were supposed to switch the infant Antichrist with the newborn of the American consulate, accidentally misplaced him instead, and he ended up being raised by perfectly normal and very British middle-class parents in a small English country town?

After introducing the premise, settings, and characters within the first 60 pages, the majority of the book takes place over the four very busy days before The End Of The World. High-jinx ensue, of course, and there is a surprisingly wide array of players, including angels, demons, nuns, witches and fortune-tellers, witch hunters, nosy neighbors, and, of course, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett excel at creating literary screwball comedies with dozens of characters all running around at cross-purposes. To my mind, though, the two authors are so perfectly matched because each balances the other’s weaknesses as well. Gaiman can get a bit melodramatic, while Pratchett is often too silly for me, so the two of them together create a fast-paced story with a light touch that doesn’t get bogged down in either symbolism or puns.

—Anna

In Lieu of Books . . . Links

May15 by Kinsey

Last week everything I had on hold at the library came in all at once, and every single book is big and giant and something I desperately want to read (Clockwork Princess! Life After Life! The Interestings!). So right now I’m wishing I could take a few days off work to hibernate with my books. While I make way through my teetering pile of hardback novels, here are a couple of links where you can actually read new content.

I first stumbled across the Bookavore tumblr when someone linked to a series she did on getting organized. That may sound like the dullest thing you could read on the internet, but it was actually fascinating and personal and helpful. Then I realized that the the author, who used to work in a bookstore and is now at a library, is a fantastic source of book recommendations. Maybe it’s a professional requirement, but she reads a much broader range of things than I do, so when I follow her guidance I end up places I never expected. For example, I just finished reading Sum It Up, the autobiography of Pat Summitt, the incredibly successful coach of Tennessee’s women’s basketball team. Does that sounds dull? IT IS NOT. I originally read it because Bookavore said it was really a book on how to manage people, which it is, but also Pat Summit is a kind of superhero. I would highly recommend both Sum It Up and Bookavore.

The second link might be my new favorite thing on the Internet. After a friend and I had a conversation this week about The Great Gatsby, she sent me a link to an article about Zelda Fitzgerald. The article is smart and informative, but also fun, which I think comes across in its title: Zelda Fitzgerald – Just A Total Mess Or What? It’s actually part of a series called Shelved Dolls, which I believe is about misunderstood/ignored women in history, from an online magazine called The Gloss. The other Shelved Dolls articles I read were great too, including this one that is relevant to Biblio-theray: Ayn Rand – I’m Going To Make You Like Her. Now, I’ve not thoroughly vetted The Gloss, so I don’t want to make any blanket claims, but it seems like a smarter, less obnoxious version of Jezebel. Which would be a good thing, because I used to adore Jezebel but don’t read anymore, since at some point it started to feel like getting yelled at about celebrities and the worst kind of sensational news stories. I intend to read more of the Gloss and see if it can fill my need for fun, informational, feminist news source, even if I still don’t like Ayn Rand.

Comic Book Glut

May14 by Rebecca

Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration
By Nobuhiro Watsuki
2013

This was one of the free comic books that I picked up at Free Comic Book Day. It is a teaser for an AU (alternate universe) version of Rurouni Kenshin by the original author. It was fun, but mostly I enjoyed it because it reminded me how much I love this series. The actual teaser itself wasn’t all that great. It reintroduced the characters and held their first meeting at an arranged illegal fighting/gambling event, which just seemed like a bit of over-the-top, idiotic, self-indulgence.

While the reboot wasn’t so great, I definitely recommend the whole original series of Rurouni Kenshin, following Himura Kenshin, an amazing swordsman who, after a bloody past during the civil war, made an oath to never kill again but still manages to find and be found by a whole lot of trouble. The anime series based on the manga is also really good, and the recent live-action movie was excellent! (The animated movies, branded “Samurai X”, however, should be avoided.)

Anyway, seeing more of these characters written and drawn by the original author made me bounce around grinning with excitement. But the actual thing wasn’t all that good. It was a it of self-indulgent fluff, and while there’s nothing wrong with self-indulgent fluff, if you actually want to read a good AU take on this series, fandom (in the person of Vathara) has provided several better options, including the urban fantasy Blades of Blood and it’s sequel Witchy Woman, the Star Wars-crossover Shadows in Starlight, or the historical fantasy Gargoyles-crossover All I Need is a Miracle (which is a direct response to the awfulness of the animated movies).

So this series is awesome, and I highly recommend it, but this particular comic book is not the best example of it.

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon
By Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Javier Pulido
2013

I’ve never really followed any of the Hawkeye comic books, but I enjoyed The Avengers movie a lot and the characters cameo in the Thor movie made me grin. So a new stand-alone comic book about Hawkeye at my library caught my eye. It was a whole lot of fun.

It’s a look at what Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton, is doing when he’s not out being a superhero Avenger… which is mostly getting into other types of trouble and going out being a secret agent for SHIELD. But it also involves hanging out with his neighbors at a rooftop barbeque/potluck.

Anna pointed out that the stories in this collection are all a bit grim, which I was going to argue with, except, okay, yes, they are a bit grim. But it left me happy. I liked it. Even though it does kind of imply that one of the main requirements of being a superhero is the ability to take a beating.

The Book of Five Rings
By Miyamoto Musashi, Sean Michael Wilson, Chie Kutsuwada, and William Scott Wilson
2012

I picked this book up because I have struggled to read The Book of Five Rings for a while now. It was highly recommended by a seventh-don black belt that I was training with. And yet, I found it super uninteresting and unhelpful. In some ways it read (to me) like The Art of War, except without the value. The graphic novel version makes up for some of that lack by being really well illustrated. And from everything I’ve read, Musashi himself was a fascinating character and I wouldn’t mind reading more about him, despite not caring for his writing.

Anyway, I actually highly recommend the graphic novel as a precursor to the plain unabridged text of The Book of Five Rings. It will give you a taste of the text while making subject more accessible. It’s readable in about an hour. Then, if you find the graphic novel appealing, maybe you should try reading the original text in its entirety.

Although, really, I mostly recommend Sun Tzu’s The Art of War instead.

Elektra Lives Again
By Frank Miller
2002

I read a couple of Daredevil series before and really enjoyed them (Frank Miller’s Daredevil: The Man Without Fear is excellent, as is David Mack’s Daredevil: Vision Quest although it largely focuses on a different character), but over all the quality of Daredevil comics varies wildly, so I also read a couple of Daredevil series before that I didn’t enjoy at all. Elektra is Daredevil (aka Matt Murdock)’s tragic girlfriend, a zombie-ninja-assassin who has her own spin-off series, but I had never read any of her comics that were any good at all… until now. This collection really brought her to life (haha!) as a character, despite her being a zombie ninja assassin. I liked the writing and the illustrations and just the whole feel for it. Well done.

Plus, there are two more Elektra graphic novels by Frank Miller for me to look forward to.

Red Glove and Black Heart

May8 by Anna

By Holly Black

I previously reviewed the first in this trilogy, White Cat, which I absolutely loved. I can’t really review these subsequent books, though, because it is the kind of series where even reading the back blurb of each book gives away brilliant twist endings from the previous book. I can’t just not review them, though, because they are awesome! I wanted another chance to tell everyone to go out and read the whole series. I swear you’ll just devour all three in one lost weekend of literary debauchery!

Anyway, without any spoilers for any of the books, Red Glove really brought home to me what I love so much about these books: they are noir mysteries, full of old school gangsters and con men and corrupt cops, but also noir-lite, set in high school, or rather an up-scale preparatory school. Our protagonist is classic teen boy, often angry and with poor decision-making skills, but is also a very amusing and often clever smart-ass.

Red Glove spends more time in the school itself than White Cat, which I appreciated. I really love world-building and just the mundane details of the school life were fascinating to me (I especially loved the school scenes in Harry Potter, too).

Each book, too, gets a little wider in scope. White Cat deals with the protagonist’s direct family, while Red Glove extends more into the criminal world surrounding the family (I swear, these are all elements introduced right off the bat, and not spoilers). Black Heart goes even further and deals with the politics and government of the world. Unfortunately, I believe that this series has been planned as a trilogy with no subsequent books anticipated, though I would be a happy reader if Holly Black decided to revisit it.

—Anna

Book Clubs

May5 by Rebecca

ButteryBooks.com

This is a website that provides ideas for book clubs, but with a strong focus on what the menus should be. Including the mixed drinks. It looks super good.

It also provides some interesting discussion questions.

I haven’t actually joined any book clubs, because I always thought that they would be like high school English class (ie, a combination of boring, pretentious, and frustrating.) This bit of prejudice (like most instances of prejudice) came from absolutely no evidence. This website provides a good counter-argument that a book club might be a whole lot of fun.

Free Comic Book Day

May3 by Anna

It’s that most wonderful time of the year (tomorrow)! On the first Saturday of May each year, comic book stores around the country host Free Comic Book Day, where they offer free special edition comics from the various publishers, as well as store-wide sales and raffles. The free editions aren’t the best stories, of course, but they can be good introductions to new series, and if you are a comic book fan, it is just a fun community event. The official website has a store finder, and I definitely recommend just stopping by your local store if you have any interest in comic books.

—Anna