Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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- How Soon Will This Madness End?
- Mark Lilla, IGNORANCE AND BLISS
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- What They Mean By Traditional
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Category Archives: Book Notes
Nonfiction Notes: Alan Lightman’s PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES
Alan Lightman: PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES (2021) This is a new book of essays by a professor at MIT, author of earlier books including the well-regarded novel Einstein’s Dreams (Wikipedia, way back in 1993) and most recently of essay collection Searching for … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Philosophy, Science
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Nonfiction Notes: Elizabeth Kolbert’s UNDER A WHITE SKY
This modestly-length book is a sequel of sorts to the author’s The Sixth Extinction (2014), which won a Pulitzer Prize and which I greatly admired. (My review here.) That book was about how the human impact on the planet, especially … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Science
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Nonfiction Notes: Carl Sagan’s BILLIONS & BILLIONS
Carl Sagan: BILLIONS & BILLIONS: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (1996, Random House) This was Carl Sagan’s final book, it says, published in 1997 not long after his premature death in 1996 at age … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Religion, Science
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Notes and Quotes: Robert A. Heinlein’s BETWEEN PLANETS
This is the fifth of Heinlein’s so-called “juveniles,” what would be called YA (young adult) books today, that Heinlein published from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. I posted about the second of them, SPACE CADET, here last year, … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Heinlein, science fiction
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Notes and Quotes: Richard Dawkins’ UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW
Here is a middle-period book by the Oxford scientist whose writing mostly focuses on evolution; this one is an exception. Its topic is the beauty of science, how science addresses the “appetite for wonder,” and how people who don’t understand … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Lunacy, Religion, Science
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Nonfiction Notes: Michael Shermer’s HOW WE BELIEVE
Michael Shermer, How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science. Freeman, 2000 When I was writing up a post here about Shermer’s first book, Why People Believe Weird Things (post here), I realized Shermer in that … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Religion, Science
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Notes and Quotes: Ray Bradbury on Good, Evil, and Knowledge
Bradbury, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1962) When I read or reread some two dozen Ray Bradbury books three years ago, in January and February 2018, I skipped this 1962 novel (despite it being one of only two genuine novels … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Ray Bradbury
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Nonfiction Notes: Matthew Hutson’s The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
Matthew Hutson, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane (Penguin/Hudson Street Press, 2012) Yet another book about irrational beliefs and cognitive illusions! After the ones by Shermer, Duffy, and Rosenberg just discussed. … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Psychology
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Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY
Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Delusions (2001, Norton) Here’s another book I’ve had since it was published but only got around to reading this past year. This is a book about taking reality at face … Continue reading
Posted in Atheism, Book Notes, Science
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Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING
Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018) (US edition Nov 2019) Here’s another book on a seemingly familiar theme: why people so frequently misunderstand the world, and what we can do to correct … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Culture, Social Progress
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