Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger

 

Title: Apollo 13

Author:  Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger

Narrated by:  Fred Sanders

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 16 hours and 15 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

 

Do you have any favorite topics that you like to read about?

We have spent long weekends this year traveling around and touring colleges. Our oldest son is a senior and he wants to be an aerospace engineer.  We all enjoy history and decided on the college tour drives it would be perfect to listen to Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.

Apollo 13 is an excellent movie, but this book fills in all of the details that can’t possibly fit into a movie.  It gives the background of the Apollo program and of the astronauts that were aboard Apollo 13.  They were supposed to be the third mission of astronauts that walked on the moon, but instead an oxygen tank explosion ended their mission and left them scrambling for their lives.  Together with support from numerous NASA personnel below, they had to work together to come up with a solution that would ultimately bring them safely home.

Fred Sanders was a good narrator.  Apollo 13 was an intriguing non-fiction tale.  Whenever I turned it off to talk to my husband, my oldest son requested that it be turned back on again.  This was the story of Apollo 13 told in third person from Jim Lovell, Marilyn Lovell, and ground control’s point of view.  It was amazing how many things went wrong, yet they all kept calmly solving the problems and carrying on.  It is a very inspiring story. This is a great book for anyone interested in the space program.

The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum by Temple Grandin

 

Title:  The Autistic Brain:  Thinking Across the Spectrum

Author:  Temple Grandin and Richard Panek

Narrated by:  Andrea Gallo

Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC.

Length: Approximately 8 hours

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What person would you like to learn more about?  I keep seeing interesting things about Temple Grandin and decided to listen to the audiobook The Autistic Brain to learn more about her and about autism.

The Autistic Brain is a great look into Temple Grandin’s life and her research on autism.    When Temple Grandin was born, autism was first being named and understood.  In this book, she discusses the latest research into autism while explaining her experiences.  I love that she was looking at Amazon reviews of her earlier book in the 1990s and it inspired her to do more research.  The review said not all autistic people think in pictures, which truly astounded Temple Grandin.  She decided she needed to learn more about this and how autistic people think.  She discusses picture-thinkers, pattern-thinkers, and word-fact thinkers.   She still does try to categorize people into these three categories, but I don’t think people can be categorized that neatly.

Grandin takes a fascinating look into possible causes of Autism and various ways it manifests. She talks about brain imagining and genetics, and other studies for possible causes.  It appears to be genetic.  She talks about how there is a very wide spectrum and that the key is it to find the strength of the autistic person and work with them using that strength.  There was also great information and detail about various sensory issues.

 Other interesting tidbits:

-        10% of autistics are savants.

-        Most savants are autistic.

-        Many autistics are good at seeing details, although many can’t see the big picture as they are too focused on the details.

-        Temple Grandin asks autistic people she meets after her talks what their favorite subject is and the most common response is history.

Andrea Gallo was an interesting audiobook narrator.

Great quote: "I've seen these cases--kids who are considered to have severe behavior problems at school until you give them math lessons that meet them where their brains are. Then their behavior normalizes, and they become productive and engaged--maybe even model students."

Overall, if you would like to learn more about autism, this is a great book with a lot of very interesting information. 

The Exceptions by Kate Zernike

 

Title:  The Exceptions:  Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science

Author:  Kate Zernike

Narrated by:  Kathe Mazur

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 14 hours and 31 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

What book have you read lately that really spoke to you?

As a female engineer, The Exceptions by Kate Zernike really spoke to me.  In this non-fiction book, the life of Nancy Hopkins is detailed as she starts her career in science in the 1970’s and then slowly realized that her career was impacted by discrimination based on her sex.  She put together a group of fellow female professors at MIT and together they put together facts and figures to point out the difference in their treatment as compared to their male counterparts.  In 1999, MIT admitted to this discrimination. 

This occurred while I was in college, and I had no idea. Experiences in this book were very familiar to me as a female engineer, particularly early in my career. I started to write out my experiences and it took over this review, so I eliminated them.  This book resonated with me.  This book is a great non-fiction counterpart to my favorite book of 2022, Lessons in Chemistry.

I thought Nancy Hopkins’ life was intriguing.  I like how she slowly realized that the deck was stacked against her no matter how much work she put in. The final straw was when a class she had developed was taken away from her and assigned to a male professor who was going to use it to write a textbook based on the class for one million dollars.  I also really liked the descriptions of the different science projects that she was working on in biology.  I thought it was fascinating.  I liked the history of her working with Crick of Watson and Crick DNA fame.  I couldn’t believe Crick grabbed her breasts the first time he met her.  It was so strange and awkward!  I also thought it was interesting that Hopkins didn’t think much of the treatment of Rosemary Franklin until she got further in her career and realized what happened.

The book also talked about MIT and its history.  I liked that Ellen Swallow Richards was mentioned.  She was the first woman admitted to MIT.  She was an unpaid chemistry lecturer and also an instructor of “sanitary chemistry.”  This was basically the start of both home economics and also the water quality chemistry that I use as an environmental engineer.  Finally in the 1970s, MIT expanded more female professors across campus in science and engineering.  Unfortunately, those numbers stalled through the 1990s even as the number of female students increased.

Kathe Mazur was a great narrator, and this was a fascinating book to listen to. I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in science and in equality in science and engineering related fields.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

What is your favorite book that you’ve read this year?  I’ve read a lot of good books, but Lessons in Chemistry is my favorite this year.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist, and this has been her passion and her dream.  She is the lone chemist at the Hastings Research Institute in the 1950s.  Most of her colleagues don’t believe she belongs there except for the top scientist at the institute, Calvin Evans.  Evans is a young genius and already Nobel Prize nominated while in his twenties.  He falls in love with Elizabeth’s mind and sparks fly when they get together.  When tragedy strikes, Elizabeth finds herself teaching America how to cook with chemistry in a cooking show.  Will she be able to fulfill her dream of being a chemist and also how to deal with her grief?

Lessons in Chemistry was a unique story that gripped me from the first page.  I had a hard time putting it down.  The characters were interesting and unique.  I loved their viewpoints.  I also love how the dog, Six-Thirty, narrated sections as well. The book shines a light on how hard it was for a woman, even a very gifted woman, to make a living in science in the past and to receive the same respect and pay as her male colleagues.  The hurdles that Elizabeth faced were quite high.  I’d like to say that things have completely changed from that time, but some of the hurdles were the same for me as a woman in engineering.    The book had a mystery throughout about Calvin’s past and I liked that it was tied up in a very satisfying way at the end of the novel.  It was overall an uplifting novel.  I also loved that Elizabeth found a family with her motley crew of friends.

Favorite Quotes:

“Elizabeth Zott held grudges too.   Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less.  Less capable.  Less intelligent.  Less inventive.  A society that believed men went to work and did important things – discovered planets, developed products, created laws – and women stayed at home and raised children.  She didn’t want children – she knew this about herself- but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career.  And what was wrong with that?  Nothing.  It was exactly what men got.”

“She saw herself living in such a society.  A place that didn’t always automatically mistake her for a secretary, a place where, when she presented her findings at a meeting, she didn’t have to brace herself for the men who would invariably talk over her, or worse, take credit for her work.  Elizabeth shook her head.  When it came to equality, 1952 was a real disappointment.”

“With the exception of Calvin, her dead brother, John, Dr. Mason, and maybe Walter Pine, she only ever seemed to bring out the worst in men.  They either wanted to control her, touch her, dominate her, silence her, correct her, or tell her what to do.  She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just treat her as a fellow human being, as a colleague, a friend, an equal, or even a stranger on the street, someone to whom one is automatically respectful until you find out they’ve buried a bunch of bodies in the backyard.”

“Imagine if all men took women seriously.  Education would change.  The workforce would revolutionize.  Marriage counselors would go out of business.  Do you see my point?”

“Although he would never be a chemist, he was a dog.  And as a dog he knew a permanent bond when he saw one.”

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

Chasing Lakes by Katey Walter Anthony (TLC Book Tours)

 

What is your passion?  While you can definitely guess that books and reading is my passion, water resources and engineering is my professional passion. Even better is when I can combine both my love of water and reading. Chasing Lakes is the perfect book for this situation.

Katey Walter Anthony grew up loving science and the great outdoors.  Her research on methane brought her to Siberia where she had adventures trying to figure out how to capture methane for her research.  Her adventures continued in Alaska, but as she grew older, she started to realize there was a piece still missing in her life, which was faith.  She also discovered love along the way with Peter, a Minnesota farmer.

I enjoyed everything about this memoir, the great outdoors, the adventure, the science, and the introspective look on life and love.  It was a coming-of-age novel as well as an exploration of faith.  I geeked out on the science talk.  I also got into my field because I love water.  It did a good job of talking about how the natural world and human made world blend together and about climate change.  It’s hard to really define this book by any one genre, but it was a personal story of a woman exploring science, but also finding her faith.

Overall, Chasing Lakes is a personal journey of one woman through science and faith that brought her to a better understanding of the world.

Book Source:  A Review Copy from Harper One as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Into the Forest: The Secret Language of Trees by Susan Tyler Hitchcock (TLC Book Tours)

 

Happy Earth Day!

What are your favorite memories involving trees?  I grew up next to a pine woods and loved spending my time in the woods climbing trees.  I also had a favorite old tree in my yard that I loved to sit in and read books well into my teenage years.  Sadly my tree grew into electric wires and was chopped down.  My love for trees and the outdoors became my profession as I became an environmental engineer.

Into the Forest is a beautiful coffee table book that focuses on trees, how they function, and how they are important for humanity.  As one would expect for a National Geographic book, the photography in this book is gorgeous.  I love looking at the pictures.  The foreword to the book is by Suzanne Simard, a Professor Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia.  She gives a good discussion of why forests are important for humanity.  The following chapters were in the book, and they were very informative and interesting:

Chapter 1 – Tree: To understand the forest, let us first get to know the tree

Chapter 2 – Earth:  Trees emerge from the soil underneath, intertwining with the life it cradles.

Chapter 3 – Water: Rain falls, sap rises:  Trees play a part in the grand water cycle.

Chapter 4 – Air:  Trees breath in, breathe out, enhancing the air with subtle fragrance.

Chapter 5 – Fire:  Forest fires rage and destroy; new life rises phenix-like from the ashes.

Chapter 6 – Forest:  Come into the forest:  refreshed, enriched, at peace with the world that surrounds you

I thought this book was fascinating.  I wish I would have had it when I was teaching environmental science to be able to share the beautiful photos and the interesting vignettes with my students.  Each chapter was filled with interesting essays about different aspects of trees. I loved Chapter 6 as it has some really interesting information about forests in the cities and old forests.  I would love to visit a really old forest and I think trying to get more green space in cities is a good thing.

Book Source:  A Review Copy Hachette Book Group as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A Blizzard of Polar Bears by Alice Henderson

 

Have you read any good thrillers lately?  Do you like books with non-stop action or books with slower thrills?

 A Blizzard of Polar Bears is a follow up to last year’s novel, A Solitude of Wolverines and starts right where the last book ended.  That being said, A Blizzard of Polar Bears also works as a standalone novel.  I would recommend reading A Solitude of Wolverines first if you can.

 Alex Carter is a wildlife biologist just finishing up a wolverine study in Montana.  She is hired for an exciting new polar bear study in Manitoba Canada.   She starts work and is excited to be making a difference studying the effects of climate change on polar bears in the artic.  After the first few days of great work, things start to go wrong with the study. Someone breaks into the lab, takes all of their data, and steals their samples.  Their helicopter pilot is hired by someone else.  Then the group realizes that they themselves have become the hunted.  Who is after them?  There is a lot of suspicious activity happening in this small town.

 I really enjoyed the wildlife biology and climate change aspects of this novel.  I find them intriguing and interesting; I am an environmental engineer for my career.  I work in the water field and not with wildlife so it’s interesting to see the science and how research is performed.  Just like with a Solitude of Wolverines, A Blizzard of Polar Bears has nonstop action as the plot progresses.  It’s kind of like an environmental action thriller.  It would be a big blockbuster movie with lots of explosions.  I find it highly entertaining, and I read this book in one day.

 One item I really loved was that the mysterious man that seems to be following Alex around in A Solitude of Wolverines, actually meets with Alex and works with her in A Blizzard of Polar Bears.  What is his back story?  Why is he following Alex around?  Will Alex be able to warm him back up when he falls into freezing cold water in the wilderness?  Ha!!!!  I feel like every snow set movie or book has a warming up scene in it.  Do you have a favorite movie or book with this type of lifesaving scene?

 Overall, A Blizzard of Polar Bears is a very entertaining wildlife ecology thriller.  I can’t wait for the next book in this series.

 Book Source:  A Review Copy from William Morrow.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Complete Birds of North America by National Geographic (TLC Book Tour)

 Do you have any bird lovers in your family or are you a bird lover yourself?  National Geographic has a new third edition of the Complete Birds of North America.  It has more than 1,000 species of birds detailed in it.

 I used to love watching for birds out of my Great Grandparents window.  They had a dog-eared field guide they would check to determine what any unknown bird was.  This book is a large hardcover book with beautiful glossy pages.  It is not a field guide, but more an encyclopedia of everything you would like to know about birds. There is a great introduction of bird watching that shows a map of north America and the range for birds.  It explains taxonomic organization, plumage variation, feather topography, and abundance terms and codes.  Beautiful artwork of the birds is included and is mostly from the 2017 edition of the book. 

 The book is split up into families. The start of each family section gives information in general about the family.  Then there are separate entries about each species. The entries have a map showing where the bird is found, a nice drawing of the bird, how to identify the bird, flight, similar species, voice call, status & distribution, migration, rare status, dispersal, and population.   

 I thought it was interesting that the last species included was the Pied Wheatear a stray from Eurasia that came to North America the summer of 2018.  My daughter is obsessed with owls and is having a fun time looking through this book.

 Overall, Complete Birds of North America is a great book for a bird lover or anyone who would like to know more about birds.

 Book Source:  Review Copy from Hachette Book Group for being a part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you.  I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memories of how he got there or even what his name is.  As he pieces everything back together, he realizes he is on a desperate mission from earth to solve the mystery of how to kill a lifeform that is taking energy from the sun at a rate that will soon destroy all life on earth.

The story is told in first person. The narrative is in the present and then flashes back to the past as Ryland remembers his past.  I really enjoyed this narrative style, and the story was action packed.  The style of the book reminded me of The Martian.  A plucky narrator who is forced to use his own ingenuity to try to save himself and humanity.  I love the humor and the science.  I really don’t want to ruin the plot of this one, but I greatly enjoyed it.  I really want to see this as a movie.

 Favorite Quotes:

“These kids were going to grow up in an idyllic world and be thrown into an apocalyptic nightmare.”

 “It’s a weird feeling, scientific breakthroughs.  There’s no Eureka moment.  Just a slow, steady progression toward a goal.  But man, when you get to the goal it feels good.”

 Overall, Project Hail Mary is the perfect combination of an action-packed story, science, and humor.

Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com

Cosmic Queries by Neil DeGrasse Tyson with James Trefil (TLC Book Tour)

 Cosmic Queries has the subtitle “StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going.”  I’ve listened to and enjoyed StarTalk a couple of times and have enjoyed Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s interviews on various programs.  I love science, but I don’t know that much about astrophysics.  I thought it was a good time to learn more.

Cosmic Queries is written in an interesting and humorous manner and I read through it quickly.  It is written for someone like me who likes science but is not an expert in astrophysics.  It goes through the history of the study of astrophysics, what makes up the universe, life in the universe, and the beginning and end of the universe. 

Sections of the book are short and interesting, and the pictures are beautiful.  Interspersed throughout are funny tweets from Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  There were also interesting side bars often with biographies of important people in astrophysics, such as a tidbit about Henrietta Leavitt.  She worked as a human computer at Harvard in the late 1800s and made a major breakthrough in astrophysics.  Of course, the work was published under a man’s name and she did not get credit until after her death.  I also loved reading about Galileo.  His story fascinates me.

Favorite Quote:

“Just because you can’t figure out how ancient civilizations-built stuff, doesn’t mean they got help from Aliens.”  - Don’t tell this to my Dad!!

Overall, Cosmic Queries is a fascinating and often humorous book about the history and future of astrophysics. I greatly enjoyed it!

Book Source:  Review Copy from Hachette Books as part of the TLC Book Tour. Thank-you!  For more stops on this tour, check out this link.

About Cosmic Queries

• Publisher: National Geographic (March 2, 2021)

  • Hardcover: 312 Pages 

  In this thought-provoking follow-up to his acclaimed StarTalk book, uber astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tackles the world's most important philosophical questions about the universe with wit, wisdom, and cutting-edge science. 

 For science geeks, space and physics nerds, and all who want to understand their place in the universe, this enlightening new book from Neil deGrasse Tyson offers a unique take on the mysteries and curiosities of the cosmos, building on rich material from his beloved StarTalk podcast. 

 In these illuminating pages, illustrated with dazzling photos and revealing graphics, Tyson and co-author James Trefil, a renowned physicist and science popularizer, take on the big questions that humanity has been posing for millennia--How did life begin? What is our place in the universe? Are we alone?--and provide answers based on the most current data, observations, and theories. 

  Populated with paradigm-shifting discoveries that help explain the building blocks of astrophysics, this relatable and entertaining book will engage and inspire readers of all ages, bring sophisticated concepts within reach, and offer a window into the complexities of the cosmos. 

For all who loved National Geographic's StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, and Space Atlas, this new book will take them on more journeys into the wonders of the universe and beyond.

Purchase Links

National Geographic | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Legendary astrophysicist NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON is the host of the popular podcast StarTalk Radio and Emmy award-winning National Geographic Channel shows StarTalk and Cosmos. He earned his BA in physics from Harvard and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. The author of more than a dozen books, including the best-selling Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Tyson is the first Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

Ada Lovelace Cracks the Code (Rebel Girls)

 

Penelope and I are continuing our reading of the Rebel Girls series by learning about Ada Lovelace.  Penelope loves math so she thought it was fascinating that young Ada Lovelace loved math as well and had great ideas for inventions.  As an adult, Ada put together what was later realized to be the first computer program and was able to imagine what the future would hold for computing.

 I had never heard of Ada Lovelace until a few years ago when I read The Innovators by Walter Isaacson.  Penelope loved the pictures in this book and the tales of Ada as a child, but she was not as captivated about Ada’s life as an adult as she was by Madame CJ Walker.  I think she did not really understand the work that Ada was doing with Charles Babbage on figuring out the mathematics and reasoning on how his machine worked.  Penelope also does not know who Lord Byron is, so the fact that Ada was his daughter went right over her head.  I explained how he was a famous poet, but ten-year-old Penelope did not really care about that. 

 Overall, Ada Lovelace Cracks the Code is a good book to learn about this early mathematics and computer pioneer.  I was amazed by her vision.  It was great to read a book about a female mathematician. 

 Book Source:  Purchased from Barnes & Nobles