The New Northern Rambler

2022-12-05

"First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human" by Jeremy DeSilva

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN: 9780062938497

Dr. De Silvia's book is a well researched trip through time that looks at the development of the foot on various bipedal organisms, e.g., Us, as well as the great apes and a few other assorted beasties who walk on two legs (typically for short periods of time). It is easy to read and will be of great interest to both the layperson and high school as well as first year university students.

There have been many many changes since I graduated with an anthropology degree in the early 90s, and in fact some of the more fascinating things have happened in the last 10 to 15 years. If I was able, I would seriously consider going back and doing my masters so I can catch up on what's going on.

Dr. De Silva traces the development of the human, and other members of the genus Homo and its predecessors through the examination of fossil evidence, as wells as extent species of animals.

Well worth the read, highly recommended.

2022-11-28

"Troubled Blood" by Robert Galbraith

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

ISBN: 9780316498937

This is the fifth book in the Cormoran Strike series, and they keep getting better each time. It is very easy to get carried away reading this book, and allow the time to pass until you almost miss your bus stop, or realise it's getting pretty late and you'd better get some sleep before work in the morning.

Galbraith's characters are so well conceived that they just jump right off the page. In addition the plotting is very intricate, but in such a way that if you want to try and figure out the puzzle before the detective you'll definitely have to pay attention.

The story itself revolves around a cold case from forty years earlier, and a young lady who wants to find out what really happened to her mother, a doctor, when she disappeared after leaving the clinic she worked at on a rainy night. This story also treats us to the developing relationship between Cormoran Strike & Robin Eldacott who are partners in the detective firm, along with the various other who work with them.

Excellent story. But for best enjoyment read the series in order, as the characters do change over the course of the novels. Looking forward to the next instalment.

2022-11-21

"Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions" by Todd Rose

Publisher: Hachette Books

ISBN: 9780306925689

I found this book "collective illusions" to be extremely interesting to read, and a bit of an eye-opener as to how people perceive each other in every day situations (and some not-so-everyday situation as well).

I first came across Dr. Rose on a YouTube video published by Big Think, in which he spoke about the various illusions that humans are susceptible to in every day life. His video is actually one of many published by this organization, all of which are quite illuminating.

The fact that humans are suffering (and that's virtually the only word you can use to accurately describe what we're facing) collective illusions in pretty much all aspects of every day life makes this book an indispensable resource on how to navigate what we experience daily.

The book is clearly written, and very informative. I would highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in the way the world works, or who is a participant in all the various social media platforms that are currently invading our life.

2022-11-14

"Mark One: The Dummy" by John Ball (1911-1988)

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 0316079502

This is the second book of Mr. Ball's that I read, and it was just as enjoyable as the first one. In fact is now so good that I have to go and actually buy a copy because I know I'll want to read it again.

The story revolves around a very successful espionage writer who's writing is so authentic and true to life that he is mistaken for one of his characters, Mark Day, whom because of the detail everyone believes is actually patterned after his own life because they think he is in fact a secret agent for some division of the American government.

He doesn't really help his case in denying this, because he does somewhat resemble his lead character, and having lived with the character for so long he has the ability to slip into his mindset and perform just as if he was the agent. When A woman shows up claiming to be his agents love interest, things get very interesting in that he knows very well that she's a fictional character, but she too acts just like the character he designed.

Based solely on the title I assume that Mr. Ball was planning on writing more in this series, unfortunately he never did.

This is a very interesting and fun to read book. I think it would make a very good movie, as long as Hollywood didn't present it as a "James Bondish" style of movie.

2022-11-07

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom" by Yeonmi Park

Publisher: Penguin Books

ISBN: 978159-206795

For the second or third time I have broken my rule about reading autobiographies and commenting on them, but in this instance it was well worth the read as Ms. Park's story is utterly amazing.

I first heard about Yeonmi Park when I stumbled across one of her videos on YouTube. At first I found it quite difficult to believe what she was talking about in her videos as I knew very little about North Korea. However after doing a little research and watching more of her Videos I've been convinced (not that it was difficult) that the Kims (Kim Jong-un is the third generation of this dictatorial family) will do virtually anything to hold onto their power, regardless of what outsiders think of them.

Unfortunately, the majority of the world seems to have turned a blind eye towards the disgraceful, and inhuman treatment of the population of North Korea by this family. The sanctions imposed on North Korea for the most part seem only to be hurting the civilians, and do not seem to be affecting the Kim regime at all.

But why is this?

Granted, as I write this the Russian invasion of Ukraine is taking centre stage in the world news, but this war is only a few months old. The brutality and essentially concentration camp style of rule in North Korea has been going on for over 60 years. Once again why has this been allowed to happen?

"In Order To Live" is an excellent story, that I would recommend everyone read.

2022-10-31

"Two Faces of Tomorrow" by James P. Hogan (1941-2010)

Publisher: Del Rey Books

ISBN: 0345296605

This novel portrays a future in which civilization itself is now so complex that a worldwide computer net work is essential, and in which a partial system is currently in operation. As a premise, most people today can probably see this as something that will be coming in their lifetime after all many people nowadays use computers extensively. However today's computers, are unlikely to be able to handle a worldwide civilization.

This then brings up the topic of artificial intelligence, adaptive learning, and a whole host of other speculations with regard to computers. It is determined both by trial and error that what is needed is a universal self-aware, and self programming computer system. One that could make decisions without consulting humans for every routine operation.

Enter Raymond Dyer and his computer team who are experimenting with very rudimentary self-aware computer systems. They are essentially drafted into designing a computer system capable of running the earth, and testing it out in a controlled environment.

This book has some very good characters, that are well developed. I believe the world building however is the more important part of the novel itself as we see what happened to cause this new idea to come to pass as well as logically what might need to be done to test such a program if it were ever to happen.

Once again Mr. Hogan gives us an extremely interesting and thought-provoking book.

2022-10-24

"Literature Suppressed on Political Grounds" by Nicholas J. Karolides

Like the first two titles in this series (Social Grounds & Sexual Grounds), both of which I already reviewed, this one was also very interesting book. When you consider that the United States is supposed to be this beacon of democracy, it seems rather odd that they would suppress political viewpoints. With all the different worldviews in existence today it would seem more logical (at least to me) that these books shouldn't be suppressed, but should be readily available and this material should be critically analysed.

A total of 118 books are examined in this book. A short summary of the contents of each book is given, and then the censorship history is examined. Some of the objections came from parents who were offended when their children were assigned books to read, and school boards as well. A rather odd occurrence through was publishers themselves who refused to publish books due to their own political viewpoints.

There is one final book in this series that deals with religious censorship and I am looking forward to reading those as well. They were all written in 2011, and I believe it is time to update them with new editions.

2022-10-17

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John Le Carré (1931-2020)

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

ISBN: 0394492196

This novel is considered by many to be the gold standard for espionage novels, and I feel this honour is well deserved.

Some may find the novel hard to get into, but this is primarily the way that Mr. Le Carré wrote as his goal (at least in my opinion) is to make the reader think about what they're reading. This is a typical writing standard for mysteries, and to a certain point some other genres as well, but compared to these genres doing so in an espionage novels is much rarer, and therefore many people are not used to this form of writing. Mr. Le Carré however excelled at this.

The story for those of you who do not know it revolves around the investigation of a mole that has been planted in British Secret Service by the Russians. The mole has been in place for sometime, and his existence just came to light. The person in charge of what I assume is actually MI-6 but it's called "The Circus" has discovered the existence of the mole but does not know who it is. This leads him to dispatch an agent to acquire this information, however the information he was to require was a plant itself. The plot develops from this premise but I don't want to give anymore away.

The characterization in this novel is excellent, as are the settings. This book is not the first to feature the character of George Smiley, but it is definitely one of the most well known ones.

There have been two movie adaptions made of this book the first from 1979 which starred Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley, and it is by far the best of the two, as it is the closest to the book and is actually a 5 hour miniseries. The second (from 2011) starred Gary Oldman as Smiley is only two hours long and while it has the same general gist as the book they had to leave out a lot of detail. Also, as is typical for Hollywood today they added bits that we're not really necessary to the story.

An excellent read, highly recommended.