I started off my last reading update with the sentence, “2019 has been a busy year for me – mostly work-wise, and I’ve been taking care of myself.” While this is still true, I’ve already knocked four books off the to be read pile. From that last post, three books have reviews – The Moscow Rules, Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered, and The Delirium Brief. The fourth review is in work.
I’ve read some really great books this year, and the year’s got a lot of time left. Below is a list in no certain order of books that will make their way up on the blog. Thanks to the publishers for the advanced copies.
Just Finished
The Hound of Justice
I just finished this one, and it surpassed my expectations. Last year’s A Study in Honor won me over with simply the cover. Everything inside the covers surpassed all my expectations, and The Hound of Justice topped my 2019 anticipating list. I loved it from start to finish; this sequel is better than the first book in the series. My review is currently in work, but I’m going to put this in the Highly Recommended column. The Hound of Justice will be available July 30, 2019 from Harper Voyager.
Dr. Janet Watson and covert agent Sara Holmes, introduced in the acclaimed A Study in Honor, continue their dangerous investigation into the new American Civil War with the help of fresh allies, advanced technology, and brilliant deduction in this superb reimagining of Sherlock Holmes.
It’s been two months since Dr. Janet Watson accepted an offer from Georgetown University Hospital. The training for her new high-tech arm is taking longer than expected, however, leaving her in limbo. Meanwhile, her brilliant friend and compatriot, Sara Holmes, has been placed on leave–punishment for going rogue during their previous adventure.
After an extremist faction called the Brotherhood of Redemption launched a failed assassination attempt on the president that caused mass destruction, Holmes, who is now operating in the shadows, takes on the task of investigating the Brotherhood. Holmes is making progress when she abruptly disappears.
When Watson receives a mysterious message from Holmes’s cousin Micha that indicates that Sara Holmes’ disappearance might be connected to the Brotherhood and to Adler Industries, Watson and Micha go on a high-stakes mission to reunite with Holmes once more.
Together, Watson, Holmes and Micha embark on a thrilling, action-packed journey through the deep South to clear Holmes’s name, thwart the Brotherhood’s next move, and most important, bring their nemesis to justice for the atrocities she’s committed in the New Civil War.
Currently Reading
Starting with what I’m currently reading and through the three books that follow, I’m on a Penguin Random House kick apparently. Thanks to the generous folks at Penguin for the chance to review these books. I look forward to each one in a different way. It’s going to be a summer of education, courtesy of Penguin Random House. (Since I’m a book nerd, I do pay attention to the publisher; so, I will be repaying Penguin with book purchases as the year progresses.)
How to Be an Antiracist
Stamped from the Beginning sits on my unscheduled To Be Read pile. It’s award winning history, and when I saw the opportunity to review this new work from Kendi, I couldn’t pass up the chance. I have so much to learn, and this opportunity looks like an excellent chance to improve myself. Random House is publishing How to Be an Antiracist on August 20, 2019.
From the National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a bracingly original approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society—and in ourselves.
“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it.”
Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America—but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
Upcoming Books
First Cosmic Velocity
by Zach Powers
The Cold War? Space? Yes, please. This unique book looks like it could scratch two of my intellectual itches. The premise that the Soviet space program is a sham hooked me. Also, look at that gorgeous cover. First Cosmic Velocity will be published on August 06, 2019 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
A stunningly imaginative novel about the Cold War, the Russian space program, and the amazing fraud that pulled the wool over the eyes of the world.
It’s 1964 in the USSR, and unbeknownst even to Premier Khrushchev himself, the Soviet space program is a sham. Well, half a sham. While the program has successfully launched five capsules into space, the Chief Designer and his team have never successfully brought one back to earth. To disguise this, they’ve used twins. But in a nation built on secrets and propaganda, the biggest lie of all is about to unravel.
Because there are no more twins left.
Combining history and fiction, the real and the mystical, First Cosmic Velocity is the story of Leonid, the last of the twins. Taken in 1950 from a life of poverty in Ukraine to the training grounds in Russia, the Leonids were given one name and one identity, but divergent fates. Now one Leonid has launched to certain death (or so one might think…), and the other is sent on a press tour under the watchful eye of Ignatius, the government agent who knows too much but gives away little. And while Leonid battles his increasing doubts about their deceitful project, the Chief Designer must scramble to perfect a working spacecraft, especially when Khrushchev nominates his high-strung, squirrel-like dog for the first canine mission.
By turns grim and whimsical, fatalistic and deeply hopeful, First Cosmic Velocity is a sweeping novel of the heights of mankind’s accomplishments, the depths of its folly, and the people–and canines–with whom we create family.
Sailing True North
by Admiral James Stavridis, USN retired
I didn’t know who James Stavridis was before I saw this book; while researching him, I read one of his Time essays. Its style is one that I identify as military writing: smart, respecting and respectful of the ideals the uniform stands for, and always in service to the nation. Because of that essay, I found myself wanting a historical account of the people who lead navies with insights from a man who’s been in their position. Luckily, this book was there waiting for me. Sailing True North will be published on October 15, 2019 from Penguin Press.
From one of the most distinguished admirals of our time and a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, a meditation on leadership and character refracted through the lives of ten of the most illustrious naval commanders in history
In his acclaimed book Sea Power, James Stavridis reckoned with the history and geopolitics of the world’s great bodies of water. Now in Sailing True North, he offers a much more intimate, human accounting: the lessons of leadership and character contained in the lives and careers of history’s most significant naval commanders. Admiral Stavridis brings a lifetime of reflection to bear on the subjects of his study–on naval history, on the vocation of the admiral with its special tests and challenges, and on the sweep of global geopolitics. Above all, this is a book that will help you navigate your own life’s voyage: the voyage of leadership of course, but more important, the voyage of character. Sadly, evil men can be effective leaders sailing toward bad ends; ultimately, leadership without character is like a ship underway without a rudder. Sailing True North helps us find the right course to chart.
Simply as epic lives, the tales of these ten admirals offer up a collection of the greatest imaginable sea stories. Moreover, spanning 2,500 years from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century, Sailing True North is a book that offers a history of the world through the prism of our greatest naval leaders. None of the admirals in this volume were perfect, and some were deeply flawed. But from Themistocles, Drake, and Nelson to Nimitz, Rickover, and Hopper, important themes emerge, not least that there is an art to knowing when to listen to your shipmates and when to turn a blind eye; that serving your reputation is a poor substitute for serving your character; and that taking time to read and reflect is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
By putting us on personal terms with historic leaders in the maritime sphere he knows so well, James Stavridis has in Sailing True North offered a compass that can help us navigate the story of our own lives, wherever that voyage takes us.
Something Deeply Hidden
by Sean Carroll
Physics! Weird physics at that! I first heard Sean Carroll on the Joe Rogan Podcast, and I instantly became a fan. Though I’m really, really far behind on my listening, Sean’s podcast is nerdy, educational, and yet entertaining. I fully expect the book to be the same with a very good additional chance of breaking my brain. Something Deeply Hidden will be published on September 10, 2019 from Dutton.
Caltech physicist and New York Times bestselling author Sean Carroll shows that there are multiple copies of you. And everyone else. Really.
Something Deeply Hidden begins with the news that physics is in a crisis. Quantum mechanics underlies all of modern physics but major gaps in the theory have been ignored since 1927. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how contradictory, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the “dead end” of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line, Carroll says that crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.
The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn’t happen. As you read this, you are splitting into multiple copies of yourself thousands of times per second. Step-by-step in Carroll’s uniquely lucid way, he sets out the major objections to this utterly mind-blowing notion until his case is inescapably established.
The holy grail of modern physics is reconciling quantum mechanics with Einstein’s general relativity—his theory of curved spacetime. Carroll argues that our refusal to face up to the mysteries of quantum mechanics has blinded us, and that spacetime and gravity naturally emerge from a deeper reality called the wave function. No book for a popular audience has attempted to make this radical argument. We’re on the threshold of a new way of understanding the cosmos.
Any of these books look good to you? Let me know in the comments what’s on your to be read pile!