Q3 2021 Roundup

With the fall equinox, summer is now over.

This blog has passed 2800 daily posts in a row, though reported hits are way down from last year.  Posts will continue until readership improves.  : – )

This summer saw many posts on favorite topics, including dinosaurs, robots, solar energy, and cryptocurrencies.  And robot helicopters on Mars.   And the melting cryosphere.

If we hear about a solar powered robot dinosaur that eats cryptocurrency you know it will appear in this blog!  Especially if it emerges from a melting icecap and goes to Mars to transform into a helicopter.

Book Reviews

As always, weekly reviews of 14 fiction and 6 non fiction books.

Notable book:  The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor

Fiction

Antkind by Charlie Kaufman
The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien
The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Captain Moxley and the Embers of Empire by Dan Hanks
The Paris Labyrinth by Gilles Legardinier
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Questland by Carrie Vaughn
The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Elysium Fire by Alistair Reynolds
The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Non-fiction

The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor
Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Venus and Aphrodite by Bettany Hughes
Forget the Alamo by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford
We Had A Little Real Estate Problem by Kliph Nesteroff
Pastels and Pedophiles by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko

Great Names For a Band

Terms found in real technical papers, not made up at all.

“Spin Orbit Torques”
“Cadmium Telluride”

Book Review: “Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

She had me with the opening sentence, “Malibu catches fire.”

This is the story of a remarkable family, which has endured a weird combination of awfulness and good fortune.  I mean, the kids were abandoned by their father, and then their mom died.  But they had a Malibu beach house to live in, and quickly came into money from surfing and modelling.  So, bad stuff, but astonishing good fortune.

The events in the story center on a climactic party, which attracts all kinds of people, from the local grocery clerks to Hollywood A Listers.  Obviously, this is the Malibu we all dream of!

Jenkins Reid has fun getting inside the heads of these beautiful, famous, and wanna be people.  Almost everyone is looking for love, and to be seen as they really are.  And when people put aside all the Hollywood posing, and really see each other, they find love and happiness.

So, this is about love. It is also about parenting, and, boy, parents don’t come off all that well. Especially fathers, or men in general.

But there seems to be hope in the next generation, who seem to maybe, finally, got something of a clue.  We can hope.

I wonder if we might here from some of the Rivas in future stories.

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1. Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising, New York, Ballantine Books, 2021.

Sunday Book Reviews