Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick

 

    People often joke about what aliens would think if they sifted through the stuff humans left behind. Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick answers that question. I found this book by chance while looking for more of Resnick's work after enjoying his excellent book Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future. Olduvai Gorge caught my eye because it won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella.

    A multi-faceted team of aliens has been sent to Earth long after humanity's extinction to learn more about what led humans to conquer the stars. The most notable member of the team has the ability to sense the history of an item and this novella  tells the story of seven such artifacts of Earth's past and future. It's a great, quick read that takes a look at how other cultures may see us when we're long gone.

If you like this book, I highly encourage you to check out Santiago as it's a wonderful read in an imaginative setting.

    I'd love to hear your thoughts about this novella in the comments below, via email at jeffsemonis@yahoo.com, or on twitter @jeffsbookcase. 

    

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

                                                                

I've only read a few of Agatha Christie's novels so I sometimes forget why she is the Queen of the mystery novel. I can't really say much about this book other than there is a group of people on an island and they die one by one and they know full well that one of them is the killer. And it's brilliant.

Murder on the Orient Express is also brilliant. I'm going to keep this short because you really need to experience these on your own. If you are a mystery fan then these two novels are almost required reading. The plotting is intricate and you won't see the end coming.

As always, drop me a line at jeffsemonis@yahoo.com or on twitter @jeffsbookcase.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

                                                                      

This is a very interesting book about how habits affect individuals, organizations, and societal groups. There is a lot of information about how people form habits, how they are studied, and how they can be changed. This may seem like a dry topic but the author uses many case studies that show how habits relate to our everyday world.

The second section focuses mostly on habits in the business world. There is a fascinating section on how Target uses data that they collect on shopper's habits. It's both genius and profoundly creepy. The third part focuses on habits in the larger society. The section on how habits influenced  the Mongomery bus boycott shows how habits play their part in history.

Overall it's a great read and it really gets you thinking about your own habits. Changes in habits can create profits for businesses but can also cause individuals great suffering.

For more information you can find an NPR interview with the author here or check out his website.

As always feel free to drop me a line at jeffsemonis at yahoo.com or find me on twitter @jeffsbookcase.

The Dead Witness by Michael Sims

                                                                    

The Dead Witness is a collection of Victorian detective stories that could serve as a textbook on the origin of the genre. Sherlock Holmes is there, as is Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, a story that I had long heard of but had never actually read. Sims also unearthed a detective story that predates Poe's and it is very interesting.

As the author mentioned in an NPR interview, he has also included many stories by and starring women that had been pushed to the side in earlier collections. I particularly enjoyed An Intangible Clue featuring Violet Strange.

There are many stories featuring detectives whose names are seldom heard today, such as November Joe, Uncle Abner, and James McGovan. McGovan was a pseudonym but the story, The Mysterious Human Leg was my favorite of the collection.

Dickens' On Duty with Inspector Field is a fascinating non-fiction piece that is included, along with  a reprint of part of one of the Jack the Ripper murder inquests.

If you have an interest in detective fiction then you owe it to yourself to read this book. The stories were well chosen and represent a great cross section of the genre. It has inspired me to seek out more stories about many of the detectives that were featured.

As always you can reach me at jeffsemonis at yahoo.com or on twitter @jeffsbookcase.

Books I Read as a Kid - The Mad Scientists Club

I think I had two books of short stories about The Mad Scientists Club. They were a group of friends who liked science and got into all sorts of adventures. I don't remember a lot of the stories but I did have an affinity for one that involved them acquiring a submarine. I do remember liking the books a great deal when I was in grade school though.

I learned while researching this post that there are two additional books in the series. The problem with writing about books that you read as a child is that you end up wanting to read them again. I may have to order the complete collection.

If you have young readers, give this a look. I think it would appeal to those that liked the Bruno and Boots Series that I profiled recently.

There is a great website at http://www.madscientistsclub.com/ that profiles the books and their author, Bertrand R. Brinley.

As always you can reach me at jeffsemonis at yahoo.com or on twitter @jeffsbookcase.

A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church

                                                                           

This novel is set in North Korea and has as it's protagonist a police inspector known simply as Inspector O. James Church is a pseudonym, the only information about him is what is on the book jacket: he is "a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia."

This book take awhile to warm up but once you are sucked in you realize that Church knows his stuff and has some writing chops as well. The writing can be vague in places but the descriptions of the people and what it must be like to live in a place so foreign from our own shine through.

The main thrust of the story concerns O's efforts to solve a murder, the aforementioned corpse in the Koryo, but what it is really about are his struggles with the politics and infighting of his country. The scarcity of goods is emphasised and that really made me think about how lucky we are. Socio-economics aside, for the most part if we want something simple then we can usually just go to the store and buy it. The characters in Church's story don't have that luxury as almost everything is closely rationed and/or has to be smuggled in.

It also opens up a door into a word that most people know nothing about. Often we think of other countries as vague political entities but we forget that they are populated by regular people who are just trying to live their lives.

If you enjoy books about other cultures or would like to see North Korea form a different angle then check out this book. There are several others in the series as well. This debut was listed on many "best-of" lists and the featured in a panel by the Korea Society which you can find here. You can also hear Church discuss Kim Jong Un as successor to his father in an NPR interview.

As always, feel free to contact me at jeffsemonis at yahoo.com or on twitter @jeffsbookcase.

Prohibition by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick

                                                                 

This is a Ken Burns PBS documentary on Prohibition. I usually review books but I finished watching this over the weekend and it was great. I knew a little about Prohibition but learned a great deal from this documentary.

The pro-income tax people were in cahoots with the Prohibition supporters for one thing. That just goes to show that politics really does make strange bedfellows. This film also details the fascinating story of George Remus, among many others. Remus was a Chicago lawyer turned Ohio bootlegger who had it all figured out, until he didn't anymore. It worth watching just for that story but there is so much more information packed into it. Burns does a great job in telling the story of Prohibition from many perspectives, not just the cops and robbers that we always hear about, but also from the regular people down the street.

If you like this, check out Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent. I don't know if the film was based on the book but Okrent is listed as Senior Creative Consultant in the credits on pbs.org.

Also at PBS.org there is a great section where people can share their own stories about Prohibition.

Also Burns has made many other fine documentaries. Most people know him from his The Civil War and Baseball. I can personally attest that his documentaries on Mark Twain and Jack Johnson are both very well done.

As always feel free to drop me a line at jeffsemonis at yahoo.com or on twitter @jeffsbookcase.