2024 Books in Review

 During the year I log the books I read with brief reviews and sometimes favorite quotes.  At year end, I like to post a summary and my top picks and share them.

Looking back, this was a bit of a downer year, as I focused on artificial intelligence and did not read many happy, uplifting books.  That said, there were a few gems here and there that lifted my spirits and contributed to thoughtful reflection.  Here are my top 5 reads for this year; click the link for my review of each.

1) Lulu Dean's Little Library of Banned Books - Kirsten Miller

2) James - Percival Everett

3) Co-Intelligence - Ethan Mollick

4) Homeland Elegies - Ayad Akhtar

5) A Quiet Life - Ethan Joella

I read a total of 42 books, under my usual average of one per week.  I realized I spent way too much time "reading" social media posts and watching YouTube, taking away from the deeper pleasure of a book in hand.  I'd wish I could say I'd spent more time in the physical world than that of the mind, but I'd be fibbing!  Let me know what your favorite reads were in 2024 and any thoughts on my picks.

James - Percival Everett

 I have been seeing recommendations of this book for the last few months and purchased it in Victoria BC Canada at Munro's Bookstore while on vacation for the holidays as a Christmas gift to myself.  It did not disappoint.

This is the story of Jim, actually James, the pal of Huckleberry Finn, told from his perspective.  We meet James waiting for cornbread from Miss Watson at her back door while Huck and his friend Tom are trying to pull tricks on him. We're invited into his world, where slaves are not ignorant, caricatures but instead human beings attempting to survive a horrific reality.  

I'd asked the clerk if I needed to re-read Huckleberry Finn again before diving into this but she said it was not necessary and she was right, though I think it would have made it even more pointed in the contrast.

This story repeats a theme of several books I've read this year - that of providing a completely different perspective on the life I'm living and have lived to those around me that I've worked with and known.  Each person's existence is unique and we cannot assume similar experiences result in the same feelings and impact on their lives.  

Highly recommended and a good finish to 2024.

Published: 2024  Read: December 2024 Genre: Fiction

Wordhunter - Stella Sands

This was a delightful, quirky mystery.  A young woman with an almost photographic memory demonstrates a talent early on for interpreting language - particularly the written word - in terms of what it reveals about the background of the speaker/writer.  She soothes herself by diagramming sentences and analyzing their structure while trying to fit into the world.  

In college, she is studying linguistics when she is recommended by her professor to assist the police in analyzing the notes left behind by a suspect.  Her success leads to a collaboration on a kidnapping of the local mayor's daughter.

I enjoyed the book for the witty dialogue, clever use of linguistic analysis, and the ability to keep me from guessing the kidnapper.  My genealogical mind appreciated how the words and phrases we use can reveal our background, geographic location and education.  It also made me ponder if the use of linguistic analysis could be considered an invasion of privacy in a similar way as DNA match analysis.  A good airplane read.

Published:  2024  Read: December 2024  Genre: Mystery fiction

The Life Impossible - Matt Haig

 Another "recommended" book that I did not like.  I'd very much enjoyed his earlier book The Midnight Library.  The premise of this one is that a recently widowed woman who lost her only child when he was 9 years old is given a house in Ibiza, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean sea.  She heads out and discovers a magical alien life force that came here to save the Earth, a glowing light in the sea grass under the ocean.  It just gets weirder from there.  I kept reading hoping it would get better and was sorely disappointed.  After reading the author's acknowledgments it appears to have been written to be able to write off living on the island for a while.  At least I learned something about a place I'd never heard of and will add to my places to visit list, but this book is not recommended by me!

Quote/Comments:

[she's asked] "Are you here on your own? Yes, I said, and the sadness leaked out.  It was there on my face and in my eyes.  Grief was a flood that ran through you and caused others to stand aside.  Or at least wind up the conversation."

Published: 2024  Read: December 2024  Genre: fantasy fiction 

A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence - Michael Wooldridge

 Sub-title: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going

I've pursued learning about artificial intelligence this year as AI technology is evolving in leaps and bounds.  This book was written a few years ago so it provides a look in the rear view mirror.  

It took me some months to read the entire book.  In the end, my thoughts were "so what?"  It's an example of how quickly information becomes out of date these days.  I did find the references listed at the end of the book to be useful in providing other historical sources.  

Quotes:

"social media platforms have an incentive not to show you the truth but to show you what you like. The role of AI in this is to figure out what your preferences are based on what you like..you aren't going to get a balanced picture." 

Published: 2020  Read: December 2024  Genre: Science

The Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls - Steven Gaines

 This was another weird book.  The author writes a memoir of his life in the New York scene of the 1970s.  Basically, hedonistic, careless name-dropping and over the top debauchery.  It's a miracle he's still alive.  He's written many books, including one on the Beatles and others about celebrities like Andy Warhol and Halston just a tell-all with a nasty wit.  To me it is a sad testament to a life with no purpose.  Not recommended!  That's what I get for picking a random book at the library.

Published: 2024  Read: December 2024 Genre: Memoir

Safekeep -Yael van der Wouden

I hated this book.  The main character, Isabel, a bitter, isolated woman living alone in the family home owned by her brother, is despicable.  It takes reading 3/4 of the book to find any redeeming purpose to the story and by that point, I'd lost any interest.  So much for Booker prize nominees.  Not recommended.

Published: 2024  Read: December 2024  Genre: Fiction

About People - William Steig

Stuck at home recently, I went through some of my books and picked this one out for a late night read.  It was written in 1939, a time just before the U.S. joined WWII.  Steig was a cartoonist for The New Yorker and published this volume of sketches that the magazine had found too dark for their pages.  The book has 105 pictures of people labeled "symbolic drawings" in that they express feelings and attitudes visually.  

Steig later went on to write children's books, including "Shrek" and was a popular author in the genre.  Check out the old books you have on your shelves and see if you can find a gem worth re-visiting!

Published: 1939  Read: December 2024  Genre: Cartoons

The Lost Family - Libby Copeland

 

Since 2015, after attending a genealogy cruise where I learned about genetic genealogy, the field has become a passion of mine. I even started a monthly study group in my home, which is now seven years strong. Being an avid reader, I’ve sought out books on the topic over the years. This book revisits much of what I’ve learned and offers a fantastic summary of the field’s evolution up to 2020. As a bonus, I found it at a genealogy book sale!

Libby Copeland tells the fascinating story of Alice, a retired, meticulous genealogist who took one of the earliest consumer DNA tests with 23andMe in 2012. That test revealed a discrepancy in her family history, setting her on a journey to unravel the mystery. Alice’s quest serves as a compelling backdrop to the broader story of consumer DNA testing. Copeland interviews industry pioneers, including Bennett Greenspan of FamilyTreeDNA, scientists from 23andMe, Ancestry’s DNA team, and Yaniv Erlich from MyHeritage, to trace the field’s origins and progress.

I was delighted to encounter familiar names, such as Colleen Fitzpatrick, Barbara Rae-Venter, CeCe Moore, and other early women practitioners who were instrumental in launching this discipline.

The author masterfully weaves together Alice’s personal search with the larger narrative of scientific advancements, all while addressing critical issues like privacy, security, the rights of biological parents, and the ethical use of DNA data.

I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking an overview of the origins of DNA-based family research and the resolution of a compelling mystery!

Quotes/Notes

[mentioned] Alondra Nelson, Columbia University sociologist and author of The Social Life of DNA.

[mentioned] Nelkin and Lindee authors of The DNA Mystique

"as people we are the sum of other people's choices"

"We are empowering consumers, patients, family members, caregivers to obtain all kinds of information that we couldn't provide before..."

[mentioned] Diane Harman-Hoog class is an author of The Methodology, the DNAAdoption steps for working cases. 

[mentioned] Veil Maternity Hospitals for unwed mothers in Missouri and Pennsylvania

"concept of Georgetown University Law professor Paul Ohm that we are all at the mercy of massive troves of data that businesses collect and keep on us...the 'data base of ruin'...our genomes have become them."

Published: 2020 Read: November 2024  Genre: Science

Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe

Sub-title: The Secret History of the Sackler Empire

This is the story of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma and manufacturers of Oxycontin.  Derived from the poppy flower, opium has been the scourge of people trying to escape pain for centuries.  It's powerful effects lead to addiction and a guaranteed market for suppliers.  Purdu

e made billions of dollars on the drug, inventing the aggressive marketing to physicians and extravagant bonuses to its sales force, never acknowledging its impact on the epidemic it created in the U.S. The author is an investigative journalist who spent several years researching and documenting the rise of the Sackler fortune.

His book tracks the three brothers born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents in the early 1900's, through their rise in New York society and around the world, becoming known for their philanthropy while keeping vague about the source of their fortune.   It was an inside view of the attitudes, lifestyle and values of a very wealthy, privileged family living their own different view of reality.  

There's detailed documentation of the inside correspondence of the company, the micro management carried out by the family members and the lawsuits brought against them.  

It was depressing and appalling to see the lives destroyed and the total lack of any acceptance of responsibility or si accountability.  

Quotes: 

[They made an agreement] "that was known as a tontine, an antique investment instrument ..in which a number of participants band together in what is effectively a mortality lottery."

 "Upton Sinclair wrote that a man has difficulty understanding something if his salary depends on him not understanding"

Published:  2021  Read: November 2024  Genre: History

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

 

Earth is threatened by an interstellar virus that's eating the sun, threatening human extinction.  So they harness the virus to propel a spaceship and find an antidote.  And the main character, a grade school science teacher turned astronaut with amnesia, has to figure out how to save the world when he wakes up light years away.  

Implausible? Exactly.  Escape that I need right now? Yes.  

I've enjoyed lots of science fiction being a big Asimov fan, and a reader of Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Douglas Adams, among others.  This book was a diversion with a quirky main character who can miraculously fix anything that goes wrong on the ship, explaining the problems and fixes for a good dose of science and math along the way.  He's aiming for the source of the antidote and meets a fellow traveler...I won't spoil it but it's a bro tale of saving their parts of the universe.  Fun read.

Published:  2021  Read: November 2024  Genre: Science Fiction

Quotes:

"Light is a funny thing.  It's wavelength defines what it can and can't interact with.  Anything smaller than the wavelength is functionally non existent to that photon.  That's why there's a mesh over the window of a microwave.  The holes in the mesh are too small for microwaves to pass through.  But visible light, with a much shorter wavelength, can go through freely.  So you get to watch your food cook without melting your face off."

[Rocky is the alien the narrator encounters in space] "Rocky speaks with musical chords.  While it's very difficult to make a computer turn human speech into texts, it is very easy to make a computer identify musical notes and find them in a table."

The Demon of Unrest - Erik Larson

 Sub-title:A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War 

I really enjoy this author.  He takes facts and quotes from historical documents, diaries, newspapers, and memoirs and weaves them into a coherent, compelling story of a time and place.  I've read previous books of his: In the Garden of the Beast, Dead Wake, and The Splendid and the Vile.  They are long and I skip some of the details to get on to the action.  

This book tells the story of the build-up to the U.S. Civil War.  The animosity between the North and South and their clashing cultures escalates around Fort Sumter in the bay of Charleston, South Carolina where it was controlled by the U.S. The initial southern states that form the Confederacy after the election of Abraham Lincoln demand that the Fort be turned over to them.  The politics of the time eerily mirror some of today's issues, with passions running high.  

Larson is a great storyteller.  He shows how the Southern lifestyle revolved around a belief in slavery being a role of benevolent caretaker and the North (and the rest of the world) condemning it as inhumane.  The sections of the book use the chivalry rules of dueling to contrast the attitudes and beliefs of each side.  It's an eye-opening lesson from the past.

Published: 2024  Read: October 2024  Genre: Historical 

Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

It's a good month, another wonderful read.  Gyasi tells the family history of two sisters born to different fathers in Africa - one who becomes the wife of a British slaver on the Gold Coast of Africa and the other who is sold into slavery and taken to America.  She follows their descendants through time, teaching us the history of Africa and America from the beginning of the slave trade to modern day from the point of view of their descendants. What I appreciated is what I learned of the life of those in Africa and the perspectives of the slaves taken to America.  Like the book, A Place for Us that I finished earlier this month, it taught me to look through the characters eyes and experience their lives.  

The author leads us through time with the families - the end of slavery and the wars in Africa; freed slaves in Baltimore, Maryland; slavers working in the coal mines of Alabama; Harlem and the impact of prejudice and racism that is passed on.  I loved how the author brings the story along subtly and indirectly, introducing each generation in their own time frame yet maintaining the continuity of their ancestors. This is storytelling at its best.

Published: 2016  Read: October 2024  Genre: Fiction

A Place for Us - Fatima Farheen Mirza

Rarely do I come across a book that alters my thinking and opens my eyes to a new world.  This is a story of immigrant parents coming to terms with the adults their children have become.  On one hand it is the familiar tale of how first generation children clash with the expectations of their immigrant parents.  But those tales have been told using experiences and family relations familiar to someone from American culture.  In this story, I was immersed in the life of a Muslim family.  The author teaches us the day to day lives of this family: what they eat, how they greet one another, what they wear, what they believe.  Not by telling us but by showing the intimate details of their daily lives as they have their children, take them to school, teach them about their faith and, like all parents everywhere, adjust to the adults they become.  I came away feeling like I had lived in their world and had my eyes opened and my preconceived ideas eliminated.

In addition to the story, the writing is lyrical.  It's the first time I've enjoyed a story where the author goes back and forth between characters.  The story is told from each person's viewpoint but in a subtle way that moves the story forward while still going back and forth in time, sharing different perspectives of each character.  More importantly, we see a family, loving one another, clashing with each other and coming together.   Definitely in my top five for 2024.

Published: 2018  Read: October 2024  Genre: Fiction

Gilead - Margaret Robinson

 This book is a reflection on a man's life, and a message to his son. A father approaches death, reflecting on his life as a minister and the son and grandson of: ministers. He tells the story of his estrangement from his father, a pacifist, who broke from his own father, an abolitionist in Kansas after the Civil War. He writes to his own young son, the product of a late life marriage to a younger woman. The book won a pulitzer prize. It got high praises from reviewers, for its reflections on the relationships of fathers & sons. I didn't care for it, got bored as the story went nowhere.  

Quotes.

"I don't know exactly what covetes is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else's virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it."

"Every single one of us is a civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable-which I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to be. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be active likeness."

Published: 2004  Read: October 2024  Genre: Fiction, Philosophy

The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton

I love books that tell a good story while educating me on a slice of history. I've been gathering stories that cover the 1890's as that period in the U.S. has a unique problem for genealogists - the U.S. 1890 census was destroyed in a fire and subsequent water damage left very little of it salvageable. So reading about the 1890's gives context to the lives of my ancestors in that time period.

This book tells the story of the Cuban third revolutionary war of independence from Spain and the U.S. entry into the conflict after the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine of "Remain the Maine" phrase. It led to a declaration of war against Spain in April 1898 and the U.S. fighting in the Philippines and Cuba. In the end in December 1898, the U.S. took over both countries as protectorates as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and annexed the independent state of Hawaii during the conflict.

To tell the tale, the author follows a female reporter for the Hearst's Journal newspaper as she tries to break into the field of journalism. In parallel, the author shares the experience of a young woman acting as a courier for the revolutionaries in Cuba. Both of them assist in the rescue of Evangelina Cisneros from the notorious women's prison in Cuba and her role in rousing the American public against Spain.

It's a quick read that stitched together history and heroism, leaving a lasting lesson of the 1890's.

Published: 2021 Read: September 2024 Genre: Historical fiction

Homeland Elegies - Ayad Akhtar

 I picked this book up at Goodwill while shopping for kitchen gadgets.  I was intrigued by the title and the author's background, a Pulitzer Prize drama winner.  It's the story of a young man of Pakistani descent whose parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970's.  He grows up in two worlds - that of his Muslim heritage and of his American birth.  He shares his treatment when trying to find a friend in downtown New York on 9/11, a sad beginning of the divisiveness today.  Through his eyes he shows us how someone perceived as an enemy struggles with daily life between two worlds.  He shares the every day life of a Muslim family, their customs and beliefs demonstrated in his interactions with his family.  The story opened my eyes to a different perspective.  I felt I was watching a play that showed me a different view of the country I call home.

Published:  2020  Read: September 2024  Genre: Memoir

Orphan Trains - Stephen O'Connor

 Sub-title: The story of Charles Loring Brace and the children he saved and failed

This is a totally different perspective on the orphan trains of the late 1800's from the novel I read earlier this month.  As the sub-title indicates, it is primarily the story of the life of Charles Loring Brace, who founded the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and ran it until his death.  He initiated the idea of shipping children West to be adopted into a better life than what he felt they were living in New York City.  It's a complicated story of trying to effect change with some success and great failures.  The book is a detailed portrait of how Brace came to be an advocate for children and how his beliefs and attitudes shaped the mission of the CAS.  The author seemed to squeeze every piece of information he found on Brace and the CAS organization, leading to an exhaustively detailed account.  It would have been a better story if he'd focused on the milestones in Brace's life.  

The book is a great reference for those interested in the orphan train evolution and its eventual demise.  The last chapter describes how it was the instigation for the child welfare and foster care systems that came about later in the 1900's and are with us today.  I've identified the biological parents of a couple of orphan train riders for their descendants and this book contributes to my understanding of the placements and its effects on the children. 

Published:  2001  Read: September 2024  Genre: History

Orphan Train a Novel - Christina Baker Kline

 A young girl, Vivian, aka, Dorothy, aka Nimah, is sent from her fractured family life in New York in the late 1800s to Minnesota on an orphan train where she is shuttled from one family to another until she finds a life as an adult.  At 91 years old she meets an orphan teen in the foster care, Molly, who comes to Vivian's home to work off community service.  Their stories of growing up contrast and compares the care or lack thereof they receive in their different orphan care systems.  I found this to be a heartbreaking story of trauma for losing parents, no matter how poorly they parented, the loneliness of not having a family connection and the perseverance of the individual spirit.  

Published:  2013  Read September 2024  Genre: Historical fiction

Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo

 Sub-title: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

I'd left this book at a rental condo many years ago and had not had a chance to read more then a few pages. I picked it up recently again and am glad that I did.  It's the story of a great white shark that terrorized the New Jersey shore just as the U.S. entered into WWI.  The story shifts from the shark's perspective who ends up "close to shore" because of errant ocean currents and the innocent well-to-do beach goers who get attacked.  In a time when news took many hours to reach the city from the beach front, the initial attacks were scoffed at.  The shark ended up entering a creek and attacking a young boy.  A good read that took me back to a simpler time unprepared for tragedy.

Published: 2002  Read: September 2024  Genre: History

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books - Kirsten Miller

This is far and away my favorite book I've read this year!  A busybody in a small town achieves her long desired public recognition by leading a book banning drive and putting "good" books in a free-standing library in front of her house. Unbeknownst to her, the books are swapped out under their covers with the very books she banned and the community reads through the collection.  The author traces the impact of their reading, using banned book titles for her chapter headings.  She cleverly exposes our biases, prejudices, presumptions and blind spots on all sorts of topics on both sides of the spectrum. The story reinforced for me how books can affect our thinking and make us question our viewpoints and beliefs. She subtly reminds us that thinking you know someone can't be based on knowing what they read, even when that person is ourselves.  Her cast of characters are real people living real lives in a complex world. The epilogue includes a list of the banned books referenced in the story.  Highly recommended.

  Quote:

"Melody felt like the butt of a very bad joke.  The victim of a dark conspiracy.  An innocent bystander caught up in a terrible crime.  And for the very first time,she understood what her mother had been trying to tell her.  Giving a marriage everything you've got means one day you could be left with nothing."

Published: 2024  Read: August 2024  Genre: Fiction

The Last American Man - Elizabeth Gilbert

I've had this book on my TBR for a few years because I'd read the author's book "Eat, Pray, Love"  back in 2007 and in January this year I read her book of short stories , so this completes her writing for me.  

This is the story of Eustace Conway, a man she describes as "the last American Man".  She glorifies his self-sufficient, back to nature ethic and survivalist skills from the time he was a child up until his private acreage on Turtle Island in North Carolina where he tries to teach others to get back to Nature.  He's stubbornly independent and can't understand why he can't find the perfect mate in life, burning through numerous relationships. At the root of his story is a domineering, unforgiving, controlling father whose approval he'll never obtain.  And that's the sad ending to the tale - the last American male is broken, disheartened and unloved. 

Postscript: I looked up Eustace on the internet and found he had was on the Mountain Men TV show so he eventually made lemonade out of lemons.

Published: 2002  Read: August 2024  Genre: Biography

The Eighth Moon -Jennifer Kabat

 Sub-title: A Memoir of Belonging and Rebelling

This was a different kind of story.  The author moves to the Catskills to escape the chaos of modern life and follow her husband's job.  She loses a parent and they struggle to build their home.  But she finds friends and alliances in the mountains and a history that she weaves into the story to illuminate the present.  She discovers the history of the "anti-rent" wars from the 1840's, where tenant farmers rebelled against the rich, urban landowners who were increasing their rent until they could foreclose. It was a different way of sharing a historical period. 

Quote:  "Anger, I read, makes pain more intense and harder to treat.  Alleviating it requires more pain medication, more opioids, but chronic pain can also cause anger.  Anger helps people feel in control."

Published:  2024  Read: August 2024  Genre: Memoir

A Quiet Life - Ethan Joella

 

Three people experience personal loss that deal them life-changing blows.  Their grief, sorrow and pain is exquisitely portrayed in this moving reflection on living with loss.  A woman's soon to be ex-husband disappears with their daughter; an older man's wife dies of cancer and a a young woman's father is murdered in a convenience store.  Their stories are intertwined and the power of kindness, caring and loving unfolds as they struggle to live on.  Highly recommended.

Published:  2022   Read: July 2024  Genre: Fiction

The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson - Ellen Baker

What a marvelous read!  Since the realization in the public of the power of DNA to reveal secrets, more authors are incorporating it into their stories.  This book is about a family and family relationships, and what happens when the truth comes to light through DNA.  Baker is a good storyteller, alternating between two families lives and their past that brings them together in the present.  It's a story of hope and forgiveness augmented by the science of DNA.

Published: 2024   Read: July 2024   Genre: Historical fiction

DNA USA - Bryan Sykes

 Sub-title: A Genetic Portrait of America 

I've read the previous books by this well-known DNA researcher who ran Oxford Ancestors. He died in 2020. His early work has since been superseded by whole genome sequencing analysis but his writing is still good to read for the recent century evolution of DNA science.

He discusses his idea of a universal Ancestor from whom all people alive today descend.  It's a theoretical concept The book contains chromosome paintings of those who volunteered their DNA for his project.  At the time they were collecting Y-DNA and mtDNA and were assigning bio-ancestry groups, broadly European, African, Native American and Asian.

I'd always wondered what happened to his samples as the company closed after his death.  He stated on page 289 that "Like Oxford Ancestors...destroys its customers' DNA sample as soon as the analysis is finished."

The appendix has a list of genes by chromosome and the parts of the body they affect; a nice reference.

It was amusing that throughout the book he commented snidely on American society and culture and our western expansion without taking any note of the impact of his homeland on the Native American population. 

Published:  2012   Read: May - July 2024  Genre: Science

The Women - Kristin Hannah

 This story came highly recommended. It was a great read, finished it in 2 days.  It's the story of a young woman who enlists as a nurse during the Vietnam war.  Her idealistic outlook is quickly squashed as the realities of war become clear.  Not only was she subjected to horrors she'd never imagined, she encounters even worse realities when she returns home.  She constantly hears "no women were in Vietnam" and is told to forget and move on.  A good read.

Published:  2024  Read: June 2024  Genre: Historical fiction

The Making of the Fittest - Sean B Carroll

 Sub-title: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution

The problem with reading books about DNA is they become stale so quickly!  This one was written in 2006 and introduced me to a new author in the field.  He's written more recent books on similar topics that I'll be looking out for.  

This title makes the argument for evolution by providing scientific research and analysis.  I found it very approachable although I got lost in some of the terminology.  My primary take away was that there is a lot of evidence for evolution and DNA made those discoveries possible.  A good read.

Quotes/comments:

Term - fossil DNA

Term - the length of DNA that codes for an individual protein is called a gene

gene duplication are a common form of change in DNA

Published: 2006  Read: June 2024   Genre: Science

Death Valley - Melissa Broder

 A woman with a chronically I'll husband is losing her father in the ICU and escapes to a Best Western in the desert to sort out her emotions.  This is the beginning of a strange tale of dealing with overwhelming grief, loss, and sadness.  She wanders in the desert and seeks comfort and answers from nature - a Saguaro cactus, rocks, and rabbits.  

I picked this up at The Tattered Cover bookstore in the Denver airport as the reviews said it was funny and would make me laugh.  Hardly.  

Published:  2023  Read: June 2023  Genre: Fiction

Gold - Fred Rosen

 Sub-title: - The Story of the 1848 Gold Rush and How It Shaped a Nation

This book gave me new perspectives on the impact of the gold rush on the migration across America.  According to the author more than 300,000 people had trekked across the plains, rounded South America, crossed Panama and Mexico and traveled from Australia to the California gold fields.  It was a scramble for riches and upward mobility, a chance for a better life for men and their families.  He covers the treaty with Mexico to add California to the U.S. and how the Native Americans were driven off into reservations. 

I was fascinated by the personalities in the story, Sutter the merchant, Marshall, the builder.  The generals who oversaw the war with Mexico, the diplomats sent by the government to negotiate an agreement and the hundreds of unnamed men who swarmed the area, establishing gold rush towns that disappeared when the gold ran out and they moved on.  One story was about A.D. Hobson, a man from Yadkin County on the Yadkin River in East Bend, North Carolina, born in 1825 and of English and Welsh ancestors. He and his brother traveled through Salt Lake City to Shaw Flat on the Tuolumne River "where they did very well in mining".

An in-depth read of the 1840 to 1870 period of a mass migration that populated the West.

Published: 2005  Read: May 2024  Genre: History

Co-Intelligence - Ethan Mollick

 Sub-title: Living and Working with AI

I've been pursuing learning about artificial intelligence since August of 2023, have taken classes and listened to webinars and watched dozens of YouTube videos.  ChatGPT is now part of my daily work, answering questions, explaining concepts, and assisting in all sorts of tasks.  I pre-ordered this book when I discovered the author's newsletter One Useful Thing.  There is so much to digest and ponder in this new field.  Highly recommended.

p. 35 skewed view of the world because data is chosen by mostly male computer scientists

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) the concept of humans reviewing and adjusting AI output; not foolproof.  Can use "prompt injection" i.e., giving the AI instructions via prompts and "jailbreak" AIs i.e., having it go against its set limits.

In 1966 a program called ELIZA simulated a psychotherapist.  It showed that creating an illusion of intelligence was possible by using simple tricks and exploiting the human tendency to project meaning and emotions onto machines.

The ability to predict what others are thinking is called theory of mind, thought to be exclusive to humans.

AI relies on patterns for answers, from learned data, not memory.  Anything that requires exact recall is likely to create a hallucination.

LLMs are connection machines.  They can connect seemingly disparate items in novel and creative ways. A test for creativity is called the Alternative Use Test (AUT). AIs excel at this.

"Sparks of AI General Intelligence" March 2023 - Eric Horvitz

Published: 2024  Read: April 2024  Genre: Science

Escape on the Pearl - May Kay Ricks

 Sub-title: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad

I picked this up in Tucson at Bookman's before the Tucson Book Festival.  I read the first chapter and was hooked into continuing to find out what happened to a group of 77 Baltimore, Maryland slaves in 1848 who attempted an escape by ship to the North.  

The book revealed for me the stark divide over slavery, beginning the story in the late 1840s and leading up to the Civil War.  The author used extensive materials from the time to tell the story of two sisters in the group, Emily and Mary Edmonson, whose family was scattered in the aftermath of their capture.  The girls' became spokespersons for the anti-slavery movement, subjects of Harriett Beecher Stowe's second true book of slavery, and ancestors of a family who still honor their legacy.  

I learned context for a time when there were tic mark censuses of slaves without their names, the background of the country's leaders leading up to the Civil War, and the attitudes and practices of slaveholders in our nation's capital, Washington D.C.

An engaging read that I highly recommend, to history lovers and genealogists alike.

Published: 2007  Read: April 2024  Genre: History

Dead Wake - Eric Larson

Sub-title: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

I've enjoyed many other books by this author - in fact, I've read this one before, back in 2015! I'm just adding some notes from reading this time around.  I have to go look for his latest writing!

Quotes/Comments

"Lothrop Withington was on the ship, an authority of genealogy with a special expertise in Salem, Massachusetts."

"Elbert Hubbard, author of an inspirational essay..." A Message to Garcia."

"Wilhelm Uno Meriheina, a race car driver...had been born in Russia in the Duchy of Finland (which became independent in 1917)"

Published: 2015  Read: April 2024  Genre: History

Mutants - Armand Marie Leroi

 Sub-title: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

I'm on the fence about this one.  I picked it up at a used bookstore that had a shelf of books on genetics, one of my favorite topics.  It's dated, however, the facts explained are still interesting. The book focuses on the impact of mutations in our genetic makeup that are responsible for the deformities seen in humans.  That focus makes the book what could be described as morbidly fascinating, using that appeal to actually provide scientific insights on what makes us different.

I felt the author was disingenuous and exploitative of individuals who have had to live with the results. I learned the names of several genetically caused conditions and their persistence since ancient history. I was intrigued by his suggestion that dying before 100 or 120, or just aging itself, could be a mutation in the species that survived because it only occurs after the individual can no longer (or doesn't usually) reproduce and thus hasn't been weeded out by natural selection. Not recommended.

Published:  2003  Read: March 2024  Genre: Science

The Book of Brad - Monica Elizabeth Bauer

Sub-title: A comic novel about finding family

This book was a happy serendipity!  I attended the Tucson Festival of the Book and saw this book at one of the stalls.  My brother is a "Brad" and I wanted a picture of the cover.  To my delight, the author, Monica, shared that she was an adoptee who had found out she had over 50% Jewish heritage.  She had met her biological family and embraced her new found relatives.  Monica is a playwright and chose to write a book about her discovery.  But this is a different genetic genealogy story!  

Monica created a rabbi named Brad.  He's a very progressive rabbi to the Hollywood stars whose written a bestseller "The Book of Brad" to share his philosophy.  We're introduced to him just before his untimely demise while at the same time meeting his previously unknown biological daughter.  The book shares chapters from Brad's book as his daughter attempts to connect with her newly found biological family, thanks to her DNA test.  

At its heart, it's a story of the family we know, the family we find, and the family we chose. However, it's a first on the topic of DNA discoveries that tells the story in a snarky, tongue-in-cheek style that had me laughing out loud.  It was a treat to find a familiar topic with a refreshingly new twist!

You can get your own copy here: The Book of Brad: A comic novel about finding family

Published: 2023  Read: March 2024 Genre: Fiction

King Nyx - Kristen Bakis

Many years ago I read the first book by this author, Lives of the Monster Dogs.  I remembered thoroughly enjoying her writing and fantastical storytelling.  It has been a long time since she had told the story of dogs isolated for 100 years who gained human capabilities.  In her new novel, an insipid young woman marries the master's son and he's disinherited.  They struggle to survive while he writes his opus on phenomena that can't be explained by science.  Annie only sees his good qualities and not the absurdity of his theories.  She defers to him in all things, despite her own obvious intelligence and common sense. She's haunted by her breakdown after the loss of two women from her husband's father's home where she had worked as a maid. They are invited to an exclusive retreat on an island owned by a mysterious host for Charles to finish his book.  The author's writing is lyrical, detailed, and a joy to read.  Finding it was based on a real eccentric quasi-scientist and satirist, Charles Fort, who wrote The Book of the Damned that was published in 1920 made it all the more delicious.  I hope she doesn't wait so long to write her next one.

Quote:

"When everyone is telling your one thing, it can be hard to see something different, even if it's right in front of you.To do so means breaking with the people who make up your world, who keep you safe.   It means walking outside the warm circle around the fire and into the dark unknown, the territory of the excluded."

Published: 2024  Read: March 2024  Genre: Fiction 

The Rainbow:A Novel - Yasunari Kawabata

I picked this up because the author had won the Pultizer Prize.  It was a dreamy book, translated from the Japanese.  It tells the story of three half-sisters survival after the bombing of Japan in WWII, in an indirect, referential way.  I didn't care for the story and the writing was very sparse.  Not recommended.

Published:  1951  Read: February 2024  Genre: Fiction

The Prospectors - Ariel Djanikian

 This is a book of historical fiction, based on the Bush/Berry family who became millionaires from their claims on the Eldorado in Alaska.  The author takes us back and forth from the present day, with descendants of the family attempting to make reparations to the native Alaskans exploited by the family, to the story of Clarence Berry and his wife, Ethel, and her sister, Alice during their establishment of the claims.  It took me several chapters to get into the story.  I particularly didn't like Alice, who eventually married Clarence's brother, Henry to cement the family ties.  As the story unfolded, my feelings were justified as I learned of her scheming and its outcome.  

I really enjoyed the book overall and recommend it as background on the 1800's gold rush to Alaska and the long reach of fortunes made at the expense of others.

Published: 2023  Read: February 2023  Genre: Historical fiction

The World I See - Dr. Fei-Fei Li

 Sub-title: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI

This was a wonderful read that sheds a bright light on the early innovations in AI and one of its fascinating developers.  Dr Li weaves the story of her immigration and experiences in the US with the evolution of the technology.  She beautifully illustrates the power of family, mentors, and self-determination on realizing the intellect of a brilliant woman.  Highly recommended.

Quotes/Notes:

[on her mentor helping her and learning about her culture]..he read Chinese classics like Dream of the Red Chamber, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Journey to the West.

"But the failures are not in vain.  Mistakes trigger corrective signals, rippling across the network's tens of millions of constituent parts, each assessed for its contribution to the results and pushed, proportionately, to behave differently next time.  It's the simplest form of learning--to do less of whatever failed, and more of whatever didn't."

[on psychologist Eleanor Rosch and categorization and creating a vocabulary for understanding hierarchy - made me think of looking at DNA this way] "..superordinates and subordinate categories ..when taken as a whole, such hierarchies look like trees.  Moving toward the root means less specificity and differentiation, while moving toward the leaves, the farthest ends of each branch means more. "

[Anatol Holt] "AI was a technology that can make the perfect chess move while the room is on fire".

[on Jeremy Wolfe, cognitive scientist - made me think of doing a study on how blind and deaf perceive the world] "...concept of 'gist' ...directly confronted the question of what, exactly, humans perceive when they glance at the real world"  

"adversarial attacks" -  feeding information to directly confuse the AI

"explainability" or "explainable AI" - reducing neural networks' almost magical deliberations into a form humans can understand.

Published: 2023 Read: January 2024 Genre: Science

The Maniac - Benjamin Labatut

 

What a great start to the new year!  This book weaves the facts of John Von Neumann, an Hungarian polymath who "transformed every field he touched", including game theory, the first programmable computer and pioneering AI.  Reading of his accomplishments and defeats and their impact on humanity is a fascinating travel through science and its giants.  Additionally, the story is told by his family, friends and colleagues, a different way of creating a biography that I enjoyed.  The story provided a humanized picture of a brilliant man and the people in his world.  

At the end, the book describes the use of the AI ideas Von Neumann engendered to create machines that could beat Karpov at Chess and the Le Sedol, the best player at Go - a harbinger of the future.  

Quotes:

[an explanation of how a chess engine works that could be applied to genealogy tree-building] 

" it simply uses its power to calculate and then makes a decision following a complex set of hand-crafted rules laid down by its programmers. Each time its opponent places a piece on a black or white the computer constructs a search tree consisting of every possible future arising from that particular configuration of the board; the tree keeps on growing and branching out till it reaches the end of the game and the computer simply selects between its many limbs the outcomes that it considers most advantageous. With each new move comes a different tree, as the game changes and evolves constantly, but with enough power, the computer can look so far into the future as to remain a step, if not several thousand steps, ahead of any human opponent."

Published: 2023  Read: January 2024  Genre: Historical Fiction

The Love Season - Elin Hilderbrand

 The third book I polished off while on vacation, it was an engaging read.  A woman goes into seclusion, closing her successful business after she feels responsible for the death of her friend.  She is rescued by the friend's daughter, her God child. 

Published: 2006  Read: January 2024  Genre: Fiction

Pilgrims - Elizabeth Gilbert

 

One of the first books by the author of Eat, Pray Love, her popular book that I read back in 2007.  This is a bunch of short stories that read like she was practicing writing. Strong women are portrayed in not great circumstances. I enjoyed her command of dialogue and the interaction of her characters in the stories.

Published: 1997 Read: January 2024  Genre: Short Story

The Electricity of Every Living Thing - Katherine May

 

Sub-title: A Woman's Walk in the the Wild to Find her Way Home

A 40ish woman who discovers her life long discomfort with understanding and communicating with others is because she has Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD.  She embarks on a hike across England on the South West Coast Path, a journey of 600 miles, to come to terms with her new reality.

This was a fascinating read because it describes autism from the diagnosed person's perspective and because it shares the path of the hiking trail in England.  I feel I gained a better understanding of the condition and how individuals adapt. 

Published: 2009  Read: January 2024 Genre: Auto-biography