Book Reviews

A few posts back I mentioned our trip to the library, and the cool books I got. I also promised to have reviews for those books. Here they are!!


Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Wow. I had heard good things about this book, but when I picked it up at the library, all I could think was "Is he really going to try to explain all of human history in 400-odd pages?" Yes, he did try, in a way. The point is understanding why Eurasian societies are dominant today, and why they have been dominant for several years. So not really understanding all of history, but understanding the events that brought about much of current history. That explained, this was a great book, partially due to the unique lens through which Diamond looks at history. So many people start with politics, but he starts with science, and particularly food. (I like food.) This book does take some work, even trying to explain it to my parent's required some thinking on their behalf, so read this book, but only if you want to put some work into it.


Journey to the Ants, by E.O. Wilson, and Bert Hölldobler. This book is actually on loan from one of my fellow MBA volunteers, not the library. I am not exactly a "scientific" person, I love science, and all the cools things that can be discovered, or made, due to advances in science. I thought that this book would be a little too science-y for a causualist like me, but it was perfect! A great collection of stories, with just enough theories to make me feel like I was thinking about smart stuff. I would whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone who finds nature fascinating.


The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor to This American Life, which is one of my favorite radio shows of all time. Sarah (we are on a first name basis) has such a fun take on history. She does great research and can draw parallels between seemingly unconnected events in history. Her tone is seemingly flip, but really just removes the over-reverence we have for history, and historical characters. Just because they lived hundreds of years ago, doesn't make them perfect, or above mocking. In this particular book she focuses on Puritans, and I learned more about them than I thought would be interesting. The theological minutiae, the historical context, and the hilarious anecdotes. Good only if you have time to kill, and don't want to be totally bored, but still want something with some redemptive value.


That is all for this edition of Hays Book Review.
I will have a post for the events of this week tomorrow. (Probably)