Saturday, January 27, 2007

Book review posting has been light because I'm having trouble finishing a few of the books I started. I think I will probably give up on them and move on. The first is The Myth of Solid Ground by David L. Ulin. This is a non-fiction book on Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, as the subtitle states. Since I live in the San Francisco Bay area and the long term forecast is for a major earthquake within the next 20 years, I thought this would give me an idea of how solid that forecast is and if I should seriously re-consider living here. Sadly, this book isn't up to the job. I was hoping for a popular science book on the research behind earthquake analysis and prediction but instead I got a book about David L. Ulin's quest to learn about earthquake research and prediction. Most of the book is focused on his thoughts and feelings about living with the earthquake threat in California and his reactions to the researchers and earthquake predictors that he meets. Not recommended at all.

The second book I was working on was re-reading The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson passed away a few weeks ago so I thought I should re-read his most popular book. It was very influential on me when I was a teenager. For a short period, I was an anarcho-capitalist, and almost fell into being a modern hippie. If there had been anyone in my community who had similar ideas, I could have ended up following that path. Luckily, there wasn't!

Even though I hadn't read this trilogy for many years, I had read it so many times in the past that I still remembered it very well and it couldn't keep my attention this time.

Amazon links:
The Myth of Solid Ground
The Illuminatus! Trilogy

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