炉边阅读

发表:03-01-2024

Seven new selections for you – 3 fiction, 4 nonfiction – while it’s still fireside reading season. 享受!

小说

费利克斯——保罗·奥斯特

费利克斯 is a philosophy professor at Princeton, nearing retirement. This novel begins on an ordinary day where he has a list of mundane tasks to do: call his sister, 维修地下室楼梯, 等., when he burns his hand on an old pot he left on the stove This leads to a series of events that causes him to reminisce about his wife, 安娜, 谁在10年前去世了. 他和安娜的生活是故事的核心. The book is really about loneliness and grief, hope and love. This is a quiet, contemplative, beautiful novel from one of our greatest 作家.

在哈瓦那等待雪——卡洛斯·埃尔

这是一本yabo亚博网站登录首页他在前卡斯特罗时代的古巴童年的回忆录, and his subsequent exile to the United States still as a child. Eire recants his childhood with wonderful humor and keen observation of his extended family and friends. 就这一点而言，这是一本了不起的书. But he also gives a glimpse of upper-middle class life in pre-revolution Cuba, and what was lost when the country was turned upside-down. Funny and poignant, witty and sarcastic, this is a memorable book.

我是如何获得诺贝尔奖的朱利叶斯·塔兰托

一个身家亿万的隐士，B.W. 鲁宾, bought an island off the coast of Connecticut and built The 鲁宾 Institute, an academic haven for the anti-woke perpetrators who ran afoul of society’s norms, 从轻微侵犯到法定强奸. 科学家们, 作家, 艺术家, among the most accomplished and esteemed in their fields but whose actions have been “canceled” by society, 居住在这个岛上. 海伦, 从事超导研究的研究生, 是被她的导师吸引来研究所的, 诺贝尔物理学奖得主. Her husband, 凿, a radical left-wing activist, is appalled with the idea. The story is told from 海伦’s perspective: the details of her scientific work, 她和她生命中男人关系的转变, 凿, 她的导师, 她的父亲, 他也是学院的著名作家. 书中有yabo亚博网站登录首页政治的哲学段落, 宗教, free will that frame our contemporary debates eloquently. 海伦混乱的人际关系, 专业和个人, 我们所有人的关系都是普遍的吗, 并以辛酸和同情的方式讲述. And humor, as 海伦 shows her wit in describing her life. A truly enjoyable book written with pace, relevancy and humor.

非小说类

生命是如何运作的——菲利普·鲍尔

生命是如何运作的? Perhaps the common answer might be that DNA contains the “blueprint” for life, 它是共享的, 通过RNA, 到构建生命的蛋白质. There is some truth to this simplistic model, but it is hardly the whole picture. Much of the work creating life occurs at the cellular level, independent of genetic instructions. Philip Ball gives us a deep dive into current biology. There is a fair amount of science that may intimidate the general reader, but we are rewarded with some astonishing revelations. 例如, 重新排列蝌蚪的脸是可能的, so that the eyes are where the ears should be and the nose is where the mouth goes, 但是当蝌蚪变成青蛙的时候, 它的脸应该是这样的, 一只你可能想要亲吻的美丽青蛙. 这种重新配置不是通过遗传发生的. 另一点:你可以将扁虫等分, which is a fairly complex organism with a brain and nervous system, 纵向的或横向的, 或者切成一百块, 每个部分都会再生出一个全新的, 完美, 扁形虫. We are our genes is only partly true, and we don’t yet have the complete picture. 这本书深入探讨了生物学, but it provides an excellent overview of our current understanding of how life works.

美国流氓Greg Steinmetz

杰伊·古尔德可能是美国最讨厌的人, the robber baron who put his fellow scoundrels to shame. 但不可否认的是，他很聪明, 确定, and ruled the lawless wild west of Wall Street when there were no rules. 这是一种同情, 然而,平衡, 杰伊·古尔德的传记, 和更多的, a gripping narrative of the unfettered capitalism of the post-Civil War era in America. 古尔德没有资助大学或图书馆, 他的继承人挥霍了巨额遗产, 因此，古尔德在今天基本上不为人知，被人遗忘. But his story is uniquely American, and it is told here with verve.

投降之路——埃文·托马斯

Was the US right to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? 再来看看长崎? Would a demonstration of the bomb sufficed to persuade the Japanese to surrender? There are serious moral questions about the use of the atomic bombs that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, but Thomas is persuasive in showing that the Japanese General Staff had no intention of surrendering. Even after the bombs were deployed, the military wanted to fight to the last man. Thomas gives us a detailed look at the diaries of three men during the last few months of the war to explain the internal Japanese debate and how their messages were received by US leaders. 亨利史汀生, 美国战争部长, struggled with the moral consequences of the atomic bomb, 尽管他最终批准了部署, worked to cooperate with the Soviets on atomic weapons post-war. 卡尔·图伊·斯帕茨, 负责美国空军, also wrestled with the implications of the atomic bomb but never wavered in following orders to drop the bombs. Shigenori Togo was the Japanese Foreign Minister who argued passionately to surrender only to be thwarted by the military leadership. Only the unprecedented intervention by the Emperor resolved the dispute. The evidence is pretty clear that the atomic bombs contributed to the Japanese decision to surrender, and that an Allied invasion of Japan would have resulted in the loss of millions of lives. This is a riveting, important story told with pace and context.

火的天气John Vaillant

Fort McMurray, 在阿尔伯塔北部, 有90,000居民, 每个人都被这个遥控器吸引了, 寒冷的地方被埋在地下的沥青砂包围. 2016年5月, the largest fire in North American history ignited there, 迫使90人全部撤离,000人. 瓦伦特给了我们一个扣人心弦的故事, almost minute-by-minute drama of how the town came to realize that this was unlike any fire anyone had ever seen, 徒劳的控制它的努力和绝望, 随之而来的是恐慌的逃离. There is the obvious irony that the consumption of fossil fuels both built this town and contributed to its demise, and a timely warning of the urgency of transitioning to renewable energy. The book offers a lesson in geology, heart-pounding terror and a glimpse of what our future holds.