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The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The succinct writing style drives the story quickly and produces lovely nuggets of crisp dialog and narrative quips. The use of the protagonist as the author of the book is offset by the interlude of reading the diary of his lover, although the voices sound similar. The author's mastery of language makes the book very enjoyable even though I felt the ending too preachy.
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Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World by Lisa Randall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The book explores the significance of science and recent developments that may alter how we think about the world. The theme throughout the book is about scale from the smallest to the largest, the theories being explored at both ends of the spectrum, and experiments being performed now or with the help of the LHC that will help validate or disprove those theories. I found the chapters that focused on physics informative and well reasoned, while those that delved into philosophy and policy wanting. I suspect individuals unfamiliar with the role and benefit of science or the growing religious pseudoscience trend would necessarily be reading this book (i.e. confirmation bias) and as a result some sections were a slog to get through. The informal tone of the prose made for enjoyable reading but included conversations felt more like name dropping then contributing distinct interviews. While I learned from reading the book I feel the same information could have been conveyed in a book half as long.
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Recently got around to checking a couple of items off of my todo list that had been on there way too long. In summary:
Sometimes the simple things take the longest time.