From here to infinity : a vision for the future of science

by Martin J Rees.            (Get the Book)
Invited to deliver the 2010 BBC Reith Lectures, in which an eminence expounds on his specialty, Rees talked about science's relevance to the future in broad terms, as the four talks reworked for this short tome indicate. The first mulls the extent to which scientists should involve themselves in public policy. So long as they don't invoke their authority as experts in spheres beyond their ken, Rees, a former incumbent of Britain's most prestigious scientific posts and author of works of popular science, in effect says to scientists, have at it. The second lecture picks three issues Rees regards as the most threatening to humanity and, therefore, suitable for science's public activism world population and food supply, climate change (the major worry in Rees' Our Final Hour, 2003), and energy supplies. The third and fourth lectures are, respectively, about Rees' predictions of future discoveries and his suggestions for enhancing the training of scientists in this era of globalization. A prominent figure and accessible writer, Rees will attract interest to his scientific observations and prognostications. --Booklist

Mission to Paris

by Alan Furst                            (Get the Book)
Through his dozen historical-espionage novels, most set just prior to or during WWII, Furst has taken us across Europe, but he is most at home in Paris, which is why legions of his fans, upon seeing the title of his latest book, will immediately feel their pulses quicken. It only gets better. Recalling The World at Night (1996), which starred Parisian filmmaker Jean Casson dodging Nazis in 1940, this equally entrancing tale returns to the world of moviemaking, this time in 1938. Hollywood movie star Fredric Stahl, on loan from Warner Brothers to appear in a French production, arrives in Paris just as Neville Chamberlain is negotiating peace in our time. A Slovenian who was raised in Vienna, Stahl is quickly contacted by old friends, now all Nazi supporters, who see him as a valuable asset in their political warfare against the French. But Stahl has other ideas and, like so many casual hedonists in Furst's books, finds himself drawn into the prewar cloak-and-dagger world but not on the side of his former friends. There is romance, too, of course, but, as always, it carries that familiar carpe diem double edge, as lovers' attention jumps from one another to an unexpected knock on a hotel door. Furst has been doing this and doing it superbly for a long time now, and fans will note sly nods not only to The World at Night (Casson makes a kind of cameo) but also to Kingdom of Shadows (2001) and The Foreign Correspondent (2006). Is Furst repeating himself? Not really, but who would care, even if he was? Rather, he is revisiting a familiar moment in time but viewing it from a slightly different angle, through the eyes of other sets of characters. Thank heavens for that. It looks like we'll always have Furst's Paris. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Long ago Furst made the jump from genre favorite to mainstream bestsellerdom; returning to his signature setting, Paris, he only stands to climb higher. --Booklist

The age of insight : the quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain : from Vienna 1900 to the present

by Eric R. Kandel.            (Get the Book)
Inspired by his interest in expressionist artists Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele, Kandel subjects their oeuvres to intensive analysis that integrates Freudian and Gestalt psychology, art history, and neuroscience. A Nobel laureate for his scientific research, covered in his memoir In Search of Memory (2006), Kandel sets several aims for his discussion. The radical direction taken by the expressionists induces Kandel's consideration of their immediate influences, be they fascination with Freud's theories (by Klimt, especially), the emotional tides of their personal lives, or painting's general drift from realism. This trio certainly accelerated the last, and the human emotions evoked by their portraits and nudes, dozens of which the book reproduces, attract Kandel's discerning observations. Art historians Ernst Kris and Ernst Gombrich, who later critiqued the revolution Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele wrought, help Kandel link his application of scientific studies of visual perception and the viewer's experience of the expressionists and art in general. Can science and art appreciators coexist for Kandel's prime readers? Yes, if they are not casual readers and are ready for his involved explorations of their interests. --Booklist

Gone girl : a novel

by Gillian Flynn            (Find the Book)
When Nick Dunne's beautiful and clever wife, Amy, goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, the media descend on the Dunnes' Missouri McMansion with all the fury of a Dateline episode. And Nick stumbles badly, for, as it turns out, he has plenty to hide, and under the pressure of police questioning and media scrutiny, he tells one lie after another. Juxtaposed with Nick's first-person narration of events are excerpts from Amy's diary, which completely contradict Nick's story and depict a woman who is afraid of her husband, has recently found out she's pregnant, and had been looking to buy a gun for protection. In addition, Amy is famous as the model for her parents' long-running and beloved children's series, Amazing Amy. But what looks like a straighforward case of a husband killing his wife to free himself from a bad marriage morphs into something entirely different in Flynn's hands. As evidenced by her previous work (Sharp Objects, 2006, and Dark Places, 2009), she possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor. Both a compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage, this could well be Flynn's breakout novel. It contains so many twists and turns that the outcome is impossible to predict. --Booklist

China airborne

by James M. Fallows            (Find the Book)
Atlantic correspondent Fallows dives into this most timely subject and, in brisk yet erudite language, takes readers on a tour of China's burgeoning aviation industry. Along the way, he provides an in-depth look at a place where general aviation is nearly nonexistent, multimillion dollar airports are built before airline traffic is approved, and the military holds ultimate control over all of the airspace. This economic and political narrative includes a great deal of history as well, including that of the American aircraft company Cirrus (now owned by the Chinese government, a subject that Fallows hints is worthy of a book of its own) and a significant look at the shadow Boeing casts worldwide. Fallows' prescient look at society, culture, and business is based on his conversations with numerous individuals in China who spoke to him about the hard shift required to change gears and embrace open and accessible aviation, and the epic hurdles that stand in the way. Paired with China's Wings (2012), readers will acquire an unparalleled view of China in the air past, present, and future. Highly readable and significant, Fallows' book should not be missed by those seeking to understand America's relationship with this global power. --Booklist

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

by Cara Black.                    (Find the Book)
She grabbed her leopard-print coat and locked the office door. Twenty minutes later she ran up the Metro steps, perspiring and dodging commuters. Who's doing the running? Aimee Leduc, of course. The Paris investigator is a perpetual-motion machine, and she's almost always inappropriately dressed for high-speed galivanting: heels, miniskirts, leopard prints Aimee never sacrifices style for convenience. This time her destination is the oldest and smallest of Paris' four Chinatowns, nestled in the Marais. Her assignment is to deliver a birthday present intended for her partner Rene's mysterious new girlfriend, Meizi Wu, but soon enough, Meizi has disappeared, and Aimee must find her before the distraught Rene falls apart completely. As always, that's only the beginning. Thickening her plot like a French chef stirring coq au vin, Black throws a murdered scientist, a human-trafficking scandal, the Knights Templar, and revelations about Aimee's long-presumed-dead mother into the pot, leaving readers nearly as breathless as Aimee, who hurtles her way toward the conclusion. Fans of the series know the formula and don't mind a bit that it rarely varies. Paris never needs a new look, and neither does Aimee Leduc. --Booklist

The ball : discovering the object of the game

by John Fox           (Find the Book)
Disgraceful to humanity and to civilization eighteenth-century mayors of Derby, England, detested soccer (or football, to them). But Fox shows here that such games have often though not always beneficially shaped our human character and enriched our civilization. In tracing the fascinating history of ball games from the primal contests between prehistoric tribes playing with stuffed balls of grass, to the hypercommercialized violence of twenty-first-century Super Bowls readers witness the evolution of more than just sports. We learn, for instance, how the Aztecs religiously consecrated the arenas where teams battled to bounce a large rubber ball off their hips through stone rings before ritually executing the losers. Nearer our own time, we reflect on how nineteenth-century baseball created a welcome escape from the rigors of urban industry. Some readers may not like the way the mayhem of American-style football captured the national imagination as a symbol of American exceptionalism, but they will be fascinated by the spiritual idealism that launched basketball as a form of muscular Christianity. A book for fans and scholars alike! --Booklist

Canada : [a novel]

by Richard Ford  (Find this Book)

The first novel in six years from Pulitzer Prize winner (for Independence Day) Ford is a tragic rural farrago composed of two awkwardly joined halves. In the late 1950s, in Great Falls, Mont., teenage twins Dell and Berner Parson have different concerns: Berner's is whether to run away with her boyfriend; Dell's is chess and beekeeping. Their comically mismatched parents-rakish, smalltime schemer Bev and brooding, Jewish Neeva-have problems beyond a joyless union. Bev's stolen beef scheme goes awry, leaving him owing his Cree Indian accomplices. In desperation he robs a bank, roping his wife into the crime, and Dell, peering back much later, chronicles every aspect of the intricate but misguided plan, which left his parent incarcerated and he and Berner alone. Berner runs away, and Dell ends up in the care of a shady family friend at a hunting lodge in Canada, living an even more barren and lonely existence than he had in Great Falls. The book's first half has the makings of a succinct rural tragedy, but Dell's inquisition of the past is so deliberate that it eventually moves from poignant to played out. The Canadian section has a mythic strangeness, but adds little, as Dell remains a passive witness to the foolhardy actions of adults. A book from Ford is always an event and his prose is assured and textured, but the whole is not heavily significant. -- Publisher's Weekly

Nixon's darkest secrets : the inside story of America's most troubled president

by Don Fulsom  (Find the Book)

Former White House reporter Fulsom (The Billary Quiz) mines his experience to offer the "inside story" on Nixon, and the result is unfortunately a salacious, demonizing account marked by unreliable sources and unapologetic sensationalism of a flawed president and his equally flawed attendants. According to Fulsom, Nixon initiated or approved numerous assassinations that evenhandedly targeted foreign and domestic targets (including columnist Jack Anderson); had homosexual tendencies; conspired with the mob; was an anti-Semitic drunk; and for good measure, a horrible husband. One unexpected element in the story is the role the Watergate burglars may have played in the Kennedy assassination, and many old, often conflicting, conspiracy saws are offered willy-nilly, including the theory that Lyndon Johnson plotted to kill JFK. Fulsom's problematic sources include "some JFK assassination researchers"; a little known "veteran Nixon watcher"; and discredited New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. -- Publisher's Weekly