Well, my uninterrupted run of reading great books has stopped. The past few months have seen some great and some not so great books. Reviews below.
America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't by Stephen Colbert
The editor's at Amazon called this one of the best 100 books of the year. That's a bad year. The book is somewhat funny at times, but mostly it is just boring. I like sarcasm, but this book is too much sarcasm even for me. Grade: C
John McAfee's Last Stand (Kindle Short) by Joshua Davis
An interesting story about an unstable individual that made a ton of money and become more unstable, probably with the help of bath salts. Grade: B-
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
This is a book about a poem written over 2000 years ago that, the author claims, helped bring about the Enlightenment. I found the book about 10% interesting and 90% widely speculative and unpersuasive. How on earth did this book win the Pulitzer Prize?? Grade: D+
The Joy of X by Steven Strogatz
I love reading anything Steven Strogatz writes. He's both a brilliant writer and a great mathematician. This wasn't my favorite book of his, mostly because it is less targeted at advanced mathematics users. Still interesting, however. Grade: B
The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin
Easily the best book I've read in a few months. An incredibly insightful and interesting look at the Supreme Court over the past decade with a particular focus on the Obama Administration. The book makes a compelling case that the recent Supreme Court is fairly radical, and I hope that it moves to the center over the next few years. This book is a must read, but, if you haven't read, "The Nine" by the same author, you might want to read that book first. Grade: A-
Cold Blooded (Kindle Short) by Jere Longman
A nice summary of the case against Lance Armstrong. I've always suspected that Armstrong (and most other professional cyclists) used EPO to help with the first few Tours that he won. After reading this, the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt, in my mind, that he used a variety of PEDs for virtually every tour he rode. Sad. Grade: B
