Chris

Another fine work by Dr. Ehrman, this time detailing modifications to the text of the New Testament. Ehrman dedicates chapters to topics including but not limited to:

Historical attempts to reconstruct the original text
The methods used by textual critics
Theological motivations for modifying the text
Social motivations for modifying the text

As is typical of his books written for laypeople, Ehrman gives a general overview of his arguments but does not delve into great detail. Perhaps I ought to attempt one of his academic works one day. For anyone unfamiliar with the field, I think that this book would serve as an excellent introduction to Biblical textual criticism.

This book gets five stars from me for Charles Darwin's original text and for the impact of his thinking on the world. People in Darwin's time were ignorant of many discoveries taken for granted in modern science, and the fact that he was able to construct such a thorough and nuanced argument for natural selection despite some key pieces of evidence being unavailable to him is truly remarkable. Before reading I was concerned that the language might be inaccessible, but Darwin writes in a pleasurable Victorian style that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has read novels of that era. The book is of course imperfect, with the most regrettable mistake that Darwin makes easily being his repeated use of terms such as “savages” or “lower races” to describe people of color. For a man so ahead of his time when it came to his biological theories, that he was unable to see through the prejudices of the day is disappointing.

The central idea, that of natural selection being achieved through descent with modification, had been proposed before (as Darwin himself makes clear in his appendix). Darwin makes the concept scientifically compelling for the first time in world history by providing mountains of evidence from his own expeditions and experiments. This edition's introduction by George Levine does a good job of placing Darwin's argument into its historical context. Darwin supplies so much evidence, some of which admittedly might be tedious to read, because he is tasked with refuting both creationism (or, as it was known then, natural theology) and the Lamarckian view of evolution. Lamarck accepted that organisms evolved over time, but he thought that use of the body in certain ways was the primary cause of this change—that is, he erroneously thought that a giraffe could stretch its neck over its lifetime, and that the increased length of the neck would be passed on to its offspring. Darwin's approach to these differing points of view is more conciliatory than his detractors might expect: he leaves room for the possibility of limited influence by Lamarckian mechanics, and several passages contain religious language. Darwin sidesteps any discussion of humanity's true genesis, but Origin's implications on the topic were not lost on his contemporaries.

A few words on this particular Barnes and Noble Classics edition: this series of books is B&N's way of eliminating practically all the costs of book publishing apart from manufacturing. B&N achieves this goal by republishing almost exclusively books in the public domain (books old enough that their copyright protection has expired). Unfortunately, this business model means that many seminal works are missing from the series, and that many useful supplementary materials are missing from the books that are included. This deficiency is most glaring in the Comments & Questions section of this edition. The teaching of Darwinian views in public schools was a contentious political issue in the U.S. as recently as the Bush administration, which is when this edition was published. However, the most recent commentary in this edition is from 1892! Barnes and Noble is evidently unwilling to pay to license quotations from any more recent sources, regardless of how relevant that commentary might be to the contemporary reader.

George Levine's introduction is nice, and his notes are helpful enough, though I wish he had written more of them. Rather irritatingly, he leaves several passages of French, quoted by Darwin in the appendix, untranslated. Frankly, it would have been better to have notes from an evolutionary biologist as opposed to a literature professor. Many gaps in Darwin's knowledge are explained by genetics, tectonic shift, evidence of Cambrian and pre-Cambrian life forms, and evidence of mass extinction events. As someone who was obsessed with paleobiology as a child and retains a decent amount of that knowledge, I could recognize where modern science fills in the gaps. However, for anyone who is reading Origin as their introduction to natural selection, I would recommend looking for another edition with notes by a scientist. Presumably, rigorous scientific footnotes were not written for this edition because Barnes and Noble was as parsimonious as possible with this series of books.

Origin is certainly one of the most impactful books in the world, and I would recommend it to anybody interested so that they can grasp the full complexity and weight of Darwin's argument. However, Darwin's first version of the theory is understandably dated. To truly understand the complete corpus of evidence backing Darwin's core idea, any reader would also have to consult more contemporary works.

Dazzling.Much of the discourse around Station Eleven centers around the concept of a traveling performance troupe trying to preserve culture in the aftermath of the fall of humanity. That's true; indeed, it's the reason I picked up the book in the first place. But Station Eleven is much more than that. Mandel skillfully weaves in and out of storylines that take place before her fictional pandemic and at various points during it. This timeline-jumping component of the narrative has earned the book comparisons to [b:Cloud Atlas 49628 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563042852l/49628.SX50.jpg 1871423], but in truth, Mandel manages the plotwise and thematic connections between timelines much better than David Mitchell did, and she does so by staying focused and by not overplaying her hand.In spite of the inherent horror of the pandemic premise (this one's a timely read right now, during COVID-19), there is a serenity and beauty that pervades the entire novel. Plot elements can be a bit slow-going, but Mandel's world-building could not have been rushed. Her understated prose is extremely effective at immersing the reader in the world she has crafted. Even so, many motifs and allusions enrich the work. Shakespeare, Yeats, Star Trek, Sartre, and the Book of Revelation are all there.It's a bit surreal to think that this novel was published in 2014. At one point a character ponders the existence of an alternate universe in which the pandemic he lived through didn't destroy society as completely. I read this passage and realized, despite our hardships, how fortunate we are to be living in that alternate universe.A couple of minor qualms with the writing style: Mandel's insistence on referring to certain musicians by their chair in their ensemble grows grating, and I say this as a musician. Then again, there are already a lot of names to know, and perhaps she didn't want to confuse the reader further. The liberal use of sentence fragments seems welcome at times but is at other times distracting.Station Eleven very nearly reaches five-star territory for me, but not quite. Still, a magnificent work.

The book contains a good deal of accurate, up-to-date information about dinosaur paleontology. Unfortunately, there are issues with the writing that prevent this book from being as excellent as it could have been. The tone is relatively informal for a science book, and as someone with a basic level of knowledge of paleontology from an intense childhood interest in the field, I found some of the introductory material borderline patronizing.

The principal issue plaguing the book is that Brusatte is trying to write, at the same time, a summary of dinosaur paleontology and a memoir of his experiences in the field. I had to force myself to slog through passages in which Brusatte describes his specific fossil-hunting expeditions or biographizes a paleontologist he knows. Those readers searching for insight into the current state of paleontology academia may find such passages interesting, but even then, these passages are limited to Brusatte's own experience and perception; as other reviewers have noted, a great deal of emphasis is placed on male contributors to the field.

If the book were organized in such a way that readers could easily skip Brusatte's anecdotes without missing any of the paleontological conclusions therein derived, I would be more willing to forgive him, but the portions in question are nested within the paleontological information of each chapter.

Paleontology is one of the fastest-advancing fields of science. If you're not up-to-date on recent discoveries concerning dinosaurs, this book might be worth reading to glean some new information. I definitely picked up at least a few new pieces of knowledge. However, if you're looking for the definitive dinosaur book for adults, then you and I will have to keep looking together.

I have very little to say about Kindred: it is a conceptually amazing work that I rushed to borrow from the library as soon as I learned of its premise. However, the style of its prose and dialogue was just not doing it for me.

If you are interested in a biography of Sarah Vaughan: read it. You don't need the specific critiques of reviews to guide your decision. I happen to believe that Queen of Bebop is about as good of a biography of Sassy as we are likely to ever get.

Vaughan was a relatively guarded woman who seldom spoke of her personal life, and Hayes does admirable work piecing together her life story from available sources. Hayes is a musician and brings a high level of technical awareness and analysis to her descriptions of Vaughan's output. I, as a musician, appreciated this effort.

While a great deal is known about Vaughan's career (naturally), from Hayes' writing it seems that much less is known of her personal affairs apart from her oftentimes tumultuous relationships with men. I admire that the book respects Vaughan enough as an artist to focus primarily on her art. Greater insight into personal matters would have been appreciated, but my sense is that this deficit is due to a paucity of sources rather than any lack of effort on Hayes' part.

I also respect the fact that Hayes does not shy away from discussing Vaughan's life and work in historical, social, and cultural context, which naturally includes the implications of race and gender. After finishing the book, I read James Gavin's review in The New York Times, in which he asserts that Hayes may have been a bit overzealous in assigning political motivation to individual actors, including Vaughan. I'm inclined to agree with him.

One of the best takeaways from the book is the understanding of how Vaughan and other jazz artists had to balance their most artistically valuable work with more commercial output, especially earlier in their careers. Importantly, she does so without judgement and lambasts the jazz critics of the day for their condemnation. Jazz artists are/were real people, with all the complexity that that entails! Vaughan and others were under great pressure by record executives to record subpar material, and they had to financially support themselves somehow. (Billy Eckstine's polemic against jazz critics who would seemingly rather he die of an overdose than live long enough to record pop music was incisive.)

Hayes doesn't create an explicit list of recommended listening, but if you are a jazz fan, she has done the work of separating the wheat from the chaff. As of finishing Queen of Bebop, I have several more Sarah Vaughan records to listen to, and I also know which ones to skip entirely.

I highly recommend Hayes' biography to any jazz musician. The tradition is in the music itself, of course, but it is also in the stories of our heroes, and The Divine One is far from the least of these.