Category Archives: Book Notes

Stephen Prothero, GOD IS NOT ONE (2010)

Posted on Friday 22 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here is a book I’ve mentioned a couple times, having read portions of it over the years since it was published. Only last month did I read it all the way through. Mixed review. The book makes some excellent points … Continue reading →

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Richard Dawkins: THE BLIND WATCHMAKER (1986)

Posted on Tuesday 19 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This now 35-year-old book was Dawkins’ third, following the famous The Selfish Gene (summary here) and the less-famous sequel The Extended Phenotype (which I still have not read). If the first two were relatively straightforward explanations of evolution and natural … Continue reading →

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More on Bookstores

Posted on Sunday 17 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Quick post for today. Here’s an item in today’s paper about Barnes & Noble, which makes some points similar to my discussion here on the 11th. NYT, Elizabeth A. Harris, posted 15 April 2022, in print today: How Barnes & … Continue reading →

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David Wallace-Wells, THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH, post 2

Posted on Wednesday 13 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Resuming my summary outline from yesterday’s post.

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David Wallace-Wells, THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH, post 1

Posted on Tuesday 12 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Opening lines: It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn’t happening at all, and comes to us bundled with several others … Continue reading →

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Carl Sagan, PALE BLUE DOT (1994), post 2

Posted on Wednesday 6 April 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I posted about my favorite two parts of this book a week ago, in this post, and today will post a complete outline of the book based on my notes as I read, somewhat edited and slimmed down.

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Carl Sagan, PALE BLUE DOT (1994), post 1

Posted on Wednesday 30 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This was one of Carl Sagan’s last books, published in 1994 (by Random House) just two years before his death in 1996. It’s subtitled “A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” though on the inside flap it’s referred to … Continue reading →

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Rolf Dobelli, STOP READING THE NEWS

Posted on Friday 25 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Published in German, 2019, in English, 2020, by Sceptre. This is a short book on an idea that seems counter-intuitive. But I love counter-intuitive ideas, those that challenge my provisional conclusions about the world, especially if a book on such … Continue reading →

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Arthur C. Clarke, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (1973)

Posted on Sunday 13 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This was Clarke’s first novel after “returning” to writing novels following the break of nearly a decade collaborating with Stanley Kubrick on the book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey. (His previous major novel had been A Fall of Moondust … Continue reading →

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Daniel Keyes: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (1966)

Posted on Friday 11 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s the next part of the batch of brief reviews of SF novels that I began last week. I’m now thinking, though, that with more substantial books like this one I’ll just cover one book per post — back to … Continue reading →

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