Book Reviews

Empire of Bones is the third and final book in the Ashtown Burials series, and it’s best one. Wilson does a superb job of sourcing his villains and protagonists from classic literature and poetry, ancient history and mythology. It lends an immediacy and real-world feel the novel, like it all could be true and we common folk simply haven’t had visibility to the supernatural undercurrents swirling through our world history.

Teenager Cyrus Smith is an Explorer and card-carrying member of the ancient Order of Brendan. The Order is under threat from various forces (contemporary traitors and ancient evil powers alike), and the centuries-old battle threatens to spill over decisively into the broader geopolitical theater. With book 3, a lot of questions are finally answered and plot lines resolved, making it the fastest-paced and most emotionally satisfying of the series.

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Summary: Good, but not quite up to par with the rest of Sanderson’s impressive body of work.

It’s the near future. The United States is fractured into mini city-states run by competing Epics–people who 10 years ago mysteriously gained super-human powers (in the vein of the X-Men comics). Nobody knows how or why this happened. The Epics have taken control over modern civilization and dominate the rest of the population. Steelheart is one of the most powerful Epics in the world, and he rules Newcago (Chicago) with an iron fist. He is seemingly invincible to all attacks, but every Epic has a weakness. Naturally they guard their secrets very closely.

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Takeaway: The Psalms are an important part of historic worship and the modern church needs to work to keep them apart of our current worship.

Five years ago, if you had asked me what my least favorite part of the bible is, I would have probably said the Psalms.  I might have said the lists genealogies or Numbers, but most likely I would have said Psalms.

However, The Case for the Psalms is the third book on the Psalms I have read this year and I am moving toward a greater appreciation of the role of the Psalms, not only as illustrations of the range of biblical expression but as important centers for Christian worship and theology.

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The mainstream narrative of evolutionary science is that man developed slowly, progressively, linearly””over hundreds of thousands of years, ever advancing in health, intelligence, life expectancy, etc. Thus, compared to the advanced modern specimens, Neanderthal man had a shorter life span, a more primitive mind and body, and a lower capacity for culture and civilization. He was altogether inferior to modern man.

In the late 70s and 80s, Dr. Jack Cuozzo was granted unprecedented access to the world-famous Neanderthal skulls in a few European museums, where he took comprehensive scans using new x-ray technology developed by a fellow scientist. With the eye of an experienced dentist, Cuozzo began analyzing the physical evidence for ancient man. As a creationist and a Christian, Cuozzo was not committed to the ideological biases and philosophical blind spots that plague most of modern science. He began to notice indicators in the scientific record that appeared to conflict with the evolutionary paradigm. Many anthropologists and dental experts simply ignored pieces of evidence that contradicted mainstream thought””and in some cases, Cuozzo charges, they actually falsified data and bone layouts.

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Reposting the review because the Audiobook is the Audible Daily Deal for Dec 3 – $5.95

Takeaway: The history of cancer is a good proxy for the history of medicine.

The Emperor of All Maladies deserves all of the praise (and the Pulitzer) it has received.

Like most really good popular non-fiction books, it understands the necessary balance between the presenting facts and telling stories.

Almost every times I started to get slightly bored by the science or history, the author told a story.  But the stories never took over the book, they only supplemented the history or science.

What I found most interesting about the book was how often cancer was a part of technical innovation that affected others areas.  Medicine was improved because of surgery to removed cancer.  Cancer clinical trials were the root of a lot of changes in mathematics, social science research and insurance modeling.  Human trials and medical ethics were expanded and changed and re-evaluated throughout medical history in large part because of cancer research.

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During World War II, the unexpected heroes of the Pacific front were the Coastwatchers in the Solomon Islands, located off the northeast coast of Australia. These non-military volunteers–“government officials, plantation managers, gold miners, a department store buyer, a pub keeper, an accountant, a rancher”–were tasked with monitoring Japanese activity and reporting useful data to the Allies. They lived discreetly behind enemy lines, dealing with natives of ever-changing loyalties, constantly moving their cumbersome radio equipment around the islands to stay one step ahead of the Japanese, rescuing and caring for downed Allied pilots, and providing a steady stream of valuable geographic data about the islands to the commanders.

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