Vital Friends by Tom Rath

Rath, Tom. Vital Friends. New York: Gallup Press, 2006.

Do we need scientific research to tell us that friends make us more happy, healthy, engaged, and productive? Apparently we do, at least in the context of work.


Tom Rath describes the work he and his associates at The Gallup Organization have undertaken to study friendship and identify important friendship roles in his book Vital Friends. He uses the term vital friend to describe someone who significantly improves your life, who you wouldn’t want to live without, to distinguish him or her from less close friends or acquaintances.

Rath begins with a discussion of friendship in general. He describes the benefits of friendship to human health and happiness.

From there he moves into friendships at work, which is more the focus of the book. People who have a best friend at work enjoy many benefits in terms of their satisfaction with their employer, work, and compensation. Employers benefit from more engaged, safe, and productive employees.

Unfortunately, the traditional culture of many workplaces discourages friendship, both among peers as well as at different levels. Those businesses suffer the results of less engaged employees like lower productivity, quality and customer satisfaction (at the extreme, actively disengaged employees may sabotage their employers).

Part of Rath’s purpose is to help organizations turn this around and create opportunities for their employees to develop friendships with each other. A part of the book is devoted to these ideas.

A larger part of the book is useful to individuals who are looking to indentify vital friends, or friends who might become vital. Through their research, Gallup identified eight roles that friends play in our lives that correlate to our engagement at work and our overall sense of wellbeing. Each is described in some detail. Rath provides pointers on how to find people who may fill these roles for you, strengthen friendships with those who do, and how to be a better friend of this type if it is your inclination. He assumes that no friend can fulfill all these roles, and you and your friends will be more satisfied if you rely on them for their strengths and not try to fit them into another mold.

This aspect of the book is supported by on online tool in which you can answer questions about your friends and the way they relate to you. It’s designed to help you identify which friends play what roles in your life. It is meant to be a launching pad for discussions with your friends, both as a way to express you gratitude for the ways they help you and to help them be even better friends to you (you may find them responding in kind). I didn’t use this tool because the book was loaned to me. Even so, reading the chapters on the roles will give you ideas to make your own determinations of what friend are filling these roles in your life and who might fill the gaps.

The book wraps up with a description of the research that supports the ideas it presents. The research-oriented sections are in appendices; the main text has a much more casual style.

I started this review with a somewhat flippant question about needing science to tell us what we should already know about needing friends. The thing Vital Friends adds is a framework for identifying and discussing important friendships. You probably don’t want to over-intellectualize your friendships, but you may find it helpful to have some specific ideas and terms you can use as a springboard for your own thoughts and discussions with friends.

Tom Rath also co-wrote How Full Is Your Bucket?

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

Stress is shrinking your brain. If you’re living in the parts of the West, especially America, culture and policy that glorify work achievement and idealize the nuclear family result in a lot of time stress. There is hope. Brigid Schulte explores the problem and the hope for something better in Overwhelmed.

Time stress especially falls hard on women. Schulte researches this issue in some detail. I’ll admit that I skimmed some of this part—I’m a man and I have no children. Even so, I think it is a worthy topic. Men and women both need more sanity and space in their lives, and it is clear to me that women suffer more from “contaminated” time.

The idea of contaminated time caught my attention. This is time, usually intended for leisure, when we are thinking of other things that need to be done, usually some kind of work. Leisure is not just about having time to not work, it is about how you feel. If you’re distracted or stressed out by worrying about work, you’re not really experiencing leisure.

Schulte takes a broad approach to her subject. In part she explores American child care policy, even interviewing Pat Buchanan on his role in shaping it. She visits The Netherlands to see how they approach work, family and play. She talks to experts in psychology and leisure along the way.

I’ll admit I came to the book looking for answers for my own sense of being overwhelmed. The tough answer is that culture and policy change slowly, so the stressors are not going away anytime soon (though Schulte’s book suggests cultural and policy changes that might help). In the meantime, you can make choices about how you live, work and think about things. Here are some tips I gleaned from the book that might help with those choices.

-Realize that life is short.

-Decide what you want. Make it a top priority.

-You cannot make time. You can only choose how to use the time you have.

-Believe that you can make your life better.

-Be grateful.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Schulte, Brigid. Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One has the Time. New York: Picador, 2014.

How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork

OCork, Shannon. How to Write Mysteries. Cincinnati, OH: Writers’ Digest Books, 1989.

How to Write Mysteries is a quick summary of writing crime novels from start to finish. It doesn’t deal much with what it’s going to take to get you to set down and do it, but it is full of advice on what make mysteries work.

To OCork, a mystery is a like a game you play with your readers. A mystery novel is puzzle and the reader is trying to solve it by figuring out who committed the crime, typically murder. The writer must play fair by providing all the clues needed to figure it out, but at the same time provide an interesting story that obfuscates and distracts.

OCork speaks of this in terms of the real story and the apparent story. The real story is the solving of the mystery. The apparent story is all the stuff the characters must go through, some directly related to unraveling the crime and some tangential, to accomplish it.



The book deals with the mechanics of writing a mystery novel: types of mysteries, plot development, style, character development, pace, dialogue and more. It also covers what to do after you've written your book: manuscript preparation, submitting to publishers and starting your next book.

OCork uses examples throughout to illustrate her point. Some come from published works, but many come from a story she makes up for the purpose of illustration. It’s not a novel, but it does illustrate how one thing builds on another, from plot to the full story. Using this common example shows how everything ties together.

In one chapter, OCork addresses the writer’s life. It is a lot of work. If you’re making a living as a writer, or hoping to, it is your work. That means making the sacrifices needed to do the work you want, but also enjoying the fruit of it.

STEM Books

I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related books (and counting).  STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As you may have seen in the news, there is a push to improve STEM education, interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers in these fields.  The idea is that these will be the skills needed by workers of the future.  If you’re a STEM educator or a student considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of these books.

I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle school students.  The list is also a reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public health, policy, and history.  Even with these biases, I think it is a good list for someone looking for STEM-related books.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

I was fascinated by robots as a kid.  I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.  I longed for the Omnibot 2000 in the Sears Wishbook.

Robots have come a long way.  In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk like science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The robot had a very sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial intelligence.  As with most complex things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.

If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical book.  In addition, you’ll get introduced to some freaky sci-fi.  You may even get as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Interstate highway system in the United States is one of the most enormous structures built.  Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete because it needs constant repair and maintenance.  The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid Highways go back to 1916.

Earl Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads.  If you interested in automobiles or transportation, it’s a good read.

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel.  It covers almost a century of history, but many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era.  That was a time of great technological innovation.

Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand.  Railways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Suez and Panama Canals, and Hoover Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic books.  Iron Man was cool.  Spider-Man’s web shooters were very cool.  Superhero comics are full of fantasy, admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict have inspired many to study STEM in reality.

Physicist John Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes.  Sometimes comics get there science right.  Even when they get it wrong, it can be instructive.  If you know what people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this book to be a great introduction to physics.

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math.  I endured a lot of math classes to study engineering.  Reading David Acheson’s 1089 and All That did not require such endurance.  For one reason, it is a short book.  For another, Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow the outline of the math he discusses.

I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math.  1089 can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math phobias.  Just take a deep breath, relax, and follow along as well as you can.  You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a way.

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge.  Written for the bridge’s 100^th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington.  John Roebling was a German immigrant who built many suspension bridges and owed a wire-making business.  He gave his son and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a bridge that is almost 130 years old?  It’s because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies.  Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy.  As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Is there a difference between science and engineering?  Is it important?

Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes there is an important difference.  At heart, science is about increasing knowledge.  Engineering is about invention.  Of course, new knowledge makes new invention possible.  Just as often, though, engineering runs ahead of science.  Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments to conduct new observations and experiments.  The invention of the microscope made possible the science of microbiology.  Steam engines were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science (study of natural things) or branch of physics.

Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science.  Policy, science, and engineering play off of each other a lot.  Most of my career as an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by science writer Steven Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology.  Epidemiology is a medical science that uses statistics to help us understand how diseases operate in a population.  Using various statistical and geographic tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician John Snow demonstrated that cholera, once a recurring plague that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne disease.  This understanding, initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent the spread of the disease.  For those who say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and science and policy) were used to make a great difference.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

It is not much publicized today that the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806 had a partly scientific mission.  Captains Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the western territories.  It was also hoped that they would find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.  In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and commercial hopes the expedition carried.

Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition is that it was a great adventure.  There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful adventurers and explorers. 

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to admit.  Right now, thousands of very young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking their toys to see what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression of vacancy and concentration.

Jan Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a morbid book.  It is sometimes humorous, especially in consideration of topic.  From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over time.  The fears and activities of our forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of what they knew.  Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility.  Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.

If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→ from Joanne Loves Science or these recommendations→ from STEM Friday.  By the way, I also write about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.

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How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey

McCubbrey, Dorie. How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? Diet-Free Solutions to Your Food Weight and Body Worries. New York: HarperResource, 2002.

Dr. Dorie McCubbrey calls herself the “Don’t Diet” Doctor. McCubbrey has a real doctorate in bioengineering. She bases her approach to better health and life from not dieting more on her work as a licensed professional counselor.

Success in weight management and overcoming eating disorders is an inside job. Throughout the book, this is contrasted with the external sources of weight problems and attempts to deal with them.

According to McCubbrey, weight problems have their source in trying to fit ourselves to standards that come from the world around us. Even seemingly healthy people can have weight problems and eating disorders that come from this external orientation. To deal with these, people play “games” which are strategies and behaviors for controlling weight that don’t deal with the real problems.



McCubbrey herself suffered these problems and played many of these games. Her struggles with body image and perfection led hear into anorexia, bulimia, excessive exercise and periods of being overweight.

The solution to these issues, and to the broader issue of living well, is intuitive self-care. Practicing intuitive self-care involves getting in touch with one’s inner wisdom about what is good in eating, exercise and living. It is living from the inside out instead of the outside in.

McCubbrey offers strategies for practicing intuitive self-care. She describes them as feeding the soul. This “diet” for the soul involves learning to love, listen to, and express your true self. To help readers practice this soul diet, she offers several recipes, which are exercises to practice. Some of these deal directly with the way people eat and think about eating. Others are directed toward meditation and discovery of one’s true desires.

The book is in many ways more of a self-help book that a diet plan. It doesn’t focus on changing behavior of lifestyles (lifestyle change is one of the games), but on living from the soul.

Changing Minds by Howard Gardner

Psychologist Howard Gardner considers the ways people alter their thoughts and behavior in his book Changing Minds. Gardner is known for his work in multiple intelligences, which play a part in changing minds, though I won’t focus on that aspect of it here.

The heart of the book is the mind-changing factors. To be effective, a mind-changing effort will use multiple factors. Some appeal to the mind such as a rational approach (reason) and relevant data (research). Some appeal to the heart such as right feeling (resonance). Others could appeal to both: resources and rewards and real world events. In addition, a mind-changer must prepare for resistance; it is difficult to change a mind, especially to change the theories of how the world works the people form in youth.

Garnder illustrates these concepts at work through several historical examples, some recent, as well as some examples from his own life. These are arranged by scale, from influencing the large, heterogeneous population of a nation down to an individual changing his own mind (even if he won’t admit he did). He also discusses direct attempts to change minds (by political and business leaders) and indirect attempts (through science and the arts).

As someone who spends part of his time presenting training on safety in an industrial setting, changing behaviors is important to me. My coworkers need to be able to recognize hazards in our workplace and take appropriate steps protect themselves or each other (that is only part of a safety program, but it is an important part). I haven’t decided yet how to apply these concepts, but it seems to me that the mind-changing factors identified by Gardner give me a framework for estimating how effective a training might be by seeing which factors I am using and incorporating additional factors.

Gardner, H. Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy is well known for his portrayal of Spock on Star Trek television series and films. As a Vulcan, Spock is of a long-lived species, and his appearance in the 2009 reboot film and its 2013 sequel (Into Darkness) makes him a link between the new adventures and their predecessors. The actor passed away last year (2015).

I Am Spock is Nimoy’s memoir relating to his career as an actor and a director. Of course, Spock and Star Trek play an important role in that career, though Nimoy does not limit his reminiscence to the franchise.

Throughout the book, Nimoy imagines conversations with Spock. As an actor in a series where writers and directors change, he saw himself as a protector of the character (and suggested that other actors take similar attitudes to such characters). This made him passionate about a character known for being dispassionate. At the same time, he had the reasonable fear of being type casted and being unable to get other parts.

Fortunately, Nimoy was able to move on to other things after the three seasons of the original Star Trek series. On series television, he played Paris on Mission Impossible. He also had guest roles on a number of other shows. He also worked on the stage. One gets the impression for the book that Nimoy had relatively few interruptions in his career after bringing Spock to life, though not always with the steady paycheck that comes from being on a series.

Nimoy became interested in directing and tried his hand directing a few episodes of television shows. He got his chance to direct a feature film with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. This was a success and he was offered the helm of the next film, The Voyage Home. He also had a great success as director of Three Men and a Baby.

As a Trek fan, I’m obviously interested in that part of his career. Even so, I found it almost a relief to break from that and read about Nimoy’s other projects. Though he does not present himself as religious, he seemed particularly to relish projects that provided a connection to his Jewish heritage. Even the distinctive Vulcan salute was taken by Nimoy from a temple ceremony he observed as a child.

The book was published in 1995, so it covers the period up to the sixth Star Trek film, The Undiscovered Country, and his appearance on two episodes of The Next Generation. He gave no hint of imagining that he would reprise the role of Spock 14 years later.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Fic by Anne Jamison

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron

Nimoy, Leonard. I Am Spock. New York: Hachette, 1995.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. New York: Quill, 2003.

Some associate learning and teaching literature with an English Lit requirement to read boring books they didn’t understand and being embarrassed by a teacher berating them for not seeing the significance of some obscure symbol. To top things off, the kid who seems to do best is someone they know to bullshit their way through everything (that kid is probably a professor now). So when Thomas Foster promises “a lively and entertaining guide” to reading literature (it says to right on the cover of the book), he faces a skeptical audience even among book lovers.

Foster delivers on the promise. His tone is light, sometimes humorous. His style is conversational. He resorts to only on technical term and it refers to a concept that runs through the whole book so the reader will have no trouble getting it.

What makes reading the book fun is that Foster has such fun reading and thinking about what he has read. He doesn’t want people to stop enjoying what they read to start analyzing. He wants them to keep enjoying novels, stories and poems for the interest, entertainment and beauty they way they always have. Keep the old fun and add to it the enjoyments of understanding a work in relation to the rest of literature.



This is the main point of the book (and that technical term, intertextuality): a book, story, poem, or play is part of the total body of literature and by asking ourselves how it relates to other things we’ve read, using both our intellect and our emotions, we can have a full understanding and enjoyment of it. Each chapter after the first discusses things that appear in literature, such as sex, violence, weather and allusions to other works.

The idea isn’t to give you a bunch of discrete things a reader should always be looking for and doing; Foster wants to enrich readers, not burden them. Instead, each is an example of different recurring themes in literature (intertextuality says it’s all connected) allowing a few concepts to be applied to many different things.

This conceptual focus makes the book easy to grasp. The reader doesn’t have to figure out how to read like a professor by wading through a bunch of dusty old books someone thinks is great. Foster shows how readers (and he as a professor) can get more out of reading whatever they want.

That kid who bullshitted his way to a high grade in your English Lit class is probably a professor now. Fortunately, Professor Foster isn’t he.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

Nearing Home by Billy Graham

In his 90s evangelist Billy Graham wrote about the challenges of aging in Nearing Home. The title is a reference to approaching death and to looking forward to being with God and loved ones who are already with Him in heaven.

That thread runs through the book, Graham’s focus is on living as an old person in this time and this world. Old age can and should be a time of purposeful living as much as any other stage of life. This is because of as much as in spite of the difficulties.

Graham did not shy away from the difficulties of aging. Our bodies lose strength. Our memories weaken. Ache, pains and illnesses beset us. More friends and family we have loved a long time pass away.

Graham encouraged his readers to prepare for aging and death some of this is practical advice for handling affairs in this world. Get your finances in order. Put documents together so your wishes will be know and followed if you are incapacitated. Wisely consider when to retire and what it will mean to leave the work world you are accustomed to for something new, though possibly even more meaningful.

Don’t let old age slip up on you. In addition to preparing for worldly concerns, it is especially important to lay a good foundation in Christ. As Graham put it, “God designs transitions and provides the grace to embrace what follows.”

Older people have important parts to play. Retirement can give you the time to be engaged in your family, church and community in a way you could not have pursued while working full time. You can encourage other because you remember many times when God has demonstrated His love, faithfulness and power in your life. You can set an example of aging with dignity and grace, even if it seems like no one is paying attention.

As I wrote this review of Nearing Home, I heard of the passing of Delores O’Riordan. In enjoyed the music of her band, The Cranberries, at the peak of their popularity about 20 years ago. I was young; I had little money and few responsibilities in those days. I should have enjoyed them more than I did. O’Riordan died at the age of 46; we were the same age. That is too young to die in my opinion.

At any age, we may be nearer to death than we know, for the Christian nearer home. Even if we are still young, or see ourselves as young, it is wise to consider that an in to this life is coming, and many years of aging may come before it. We should consider how to be ready for aging and death and how to leave a legacy, a good example, we will want to leave.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Don’t Grow Old—Grow Up! by Dorothy Carnegie

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Graham, Billy. Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2011.

Circles by James Burke

Circles is a collection of essays that science journalist James Burke wrote for Scientific American. These 50 short histories focus on science and technology, as you might expect from the magazine that originally published them. Burke also covers culture and literature, which are inextricably tangled in those other subjects anyway.

The conceit of these essays is that they start and end at more or less the same place, making a circle. These trips through history, like history itself, are hardly tidy little circles. Burke skips from place to place, person to person, and period to period like a mad time traveler. The jumps are not random, each step has a connection to its predecessor, eventually finding a connection back to the starting point. Even so, the effect is sometimes chaotic.

I think Burke wanted to convey something of the chaos of history. It is easy to look at the history of some bit of science or technology and see it as a clearly delineated arc. We make superhighways from early concept to full-fledged idea and fly by everything else without noticing it. Burke takes the scenic route, noting the oddball side trips and serendipitous stumbles that are the typical milestones of our creeping advancement in knowledge.

The approach doesn’t allow Burke to dive deep into any subject, but that is not what he wanted to do. That is why I would recommend it to other amateur historians. You can play the honeybee with Burke, flitting from flower to flower and sipping the nectar of each. Along the way you are likely something that intrigues you. You could start a historical journey of your own.

James Burke also wrote The Pinball Effect.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Better for All the World by Harry Bruinius

The Brooklyn Bridge by Judith St. George

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

The Great Bridge by David McCollough

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson

The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

Majestie by David Teems

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello

War Against the Weak by Edwin Black

Burke, James. Circles: 50 Round Trips through History, Technology, Science, Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Boris Karloff Double Feature

I watched a Boris Karloff double feature over the weekend. Isle of the Dead (1945) is a tale of a modern man struggling against the ancient superstitions that were ingrained in him during his childhood. Tension runs high on the plague-infested island of his nightmares.



Bedlam (1946) is a combination of horror movie and morality play. It seems ripe for a remake as the story of a young woman who leaves the life of privilege she struggled so hard to attain to fight for better treatment of the mentally ill in the 18th Century. They could skip the horror-style poetic justice, but then it would just be a thriller or maybe a gritty version of the feel-good movie.

Both films deal with the classic horror theme of live internment. To better understand this fear, especially in the time when these films were set, and possible enrich your viewing, read Buried Alive by Jan Bondeson.

Second Chronicles

Second Chronicle continues the history of Israel from First Chronicles (originally they were one book). It covers a period of almost four centuries, beginning with the reign of Solomon and ending as the Babylonian captivity started.

The chronicles are books of comparisons and contrasts. There was something alike about all the periods when the kings of Israel were successful and the people thrived. Likewise, periods of defeat and loss all shared a common element. These thriving and dying periods similarly were unlike in a key way.

The key factor was the faithfulness of the king, and the people, to God. When the kings sought God and the people worshipped Him, he blessed them and caused to rise in wealth and power.  When the king and people sought their own ways, especially to worship the idols and practice the sins of neighboring kingdoms, God let them fall into the hands of their enemies. Eventually, Israel was completely taken over by Babylon.

This pattern could play out even if the reign of a single king. Some hard-hearted kings would start well but stray from God and lead the people away with him. Some evil kings responded to God’s call of repentance and reconciliation, and their turnaround could bring the whole kingdom back to God.

One could argue that the kingdom was at its peak during the reign of Solomon. He built the temple, he reigned in peace, and he stored up great wealth for himself and his kingdom. In spite of his wisdom, he strayed, too. Though he never abandoned the worship of God, he suffered for his sins, suffering he brought onto himself.

Even so, Solomon was the model of a good king. His reign takes up more pages than others in the book. A lot happened during that time, especially the building of the temple. The temple was the symbol of God’s presence with the nation of Israel, and His blessing is central to the prosperity of the nation, so it makes sense that His temple received a lot of attention.

Other notable kings include Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. These leaders were associated with revivals, the destruction of idols, the restoration of worshipping God, and generally successful reigns. As an engineer, I take special note of Hezekiah, who was famous for building a reservoir and underground aqueduct to supply water to Jerusalem.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

First Chronicles

First Kings

Second Kings

Second Chronicles. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont

Malmont, Paul. The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

There is trouble in Chinatown. The war god that sets faction against faction in Asia stretches a tentacle across the world to stir plots and revenge in America. Heroes rise to meet this menace, very unlikely heroes: writers.

Malmont takes real life writers of pulp magazines, who he clearly regards with great respect and affection, and puts fictional versions of them in the middle of the kind of adventure they may have written. Some of these writers were legends in their time, but may be little know today. For instance, the main characters are Walter Gibson, who wrote The Shadow as Maxwell Grant, and Lester Dent, who penned Doc Savage as Kenneth Robeson. Other names may be more familiar to modern readers of genre fiction, especially L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein. H. P. Lovecraft plays a brief but pivotal role in a creepy way suited to his weird tales. Several lesser know pulp writers play lesser roles in the story.

I enjoyed these intrusions of biography into the wild fiction. I don’t think anyone would need to be a fan of pulps to enjoy the book. If someone enjoys adventure stories, he’ll probably enjoy this one. The characters sometimes discuss what might be real, if improbable, and what is pulp, a good yarn. Malmont puts the pulp first.

Malmont achieves the right balance of fact and fiction by throwing out the balance. It’s fiction first. The reality is informative and fun, but Malmont makes it work double duty. It is biography and history, but it also helps the reader connect to the characters and their world, which does much to serve the fictional story.

The best thing about the book is that it is fun. It’s a thriller that thrills. It’s a twisty tale that doesn’t try to throw the reader, but sweep them along.