A Quarter of Reading: Science, History, and a Few Disappointments

Eli Bendersky's reading list for the third quarter of 2021 offers a broad mix of scientific histories, cultural critiques, and works of fiction. The selections skew heavily toward nonfiction, with several books touching on medical research, alternative medicine, and engineering. A few titles clearly stood out for their lasting impact, while others failed to live up to expectations.

Medical Science and Its Intersections

The quarter’s strongest offerings come from the world of science writing. Trick or Treatment, by Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh, delivers a critical examination of alternative medicine, dissecting common practices like chiropractic, acupuncture, and herbal remedies alongside more fringe approaches such as Reiki. The authors pair damning evidence against these regimes with considerable historical context. The book’s skepticism reads as well-founded and scientifically inclined.

Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is another highlight, tracing the story of the HeLa cell line from its origin in the 1950s through its indispensable role in medical research today. Bendersky praises the book for combining a gripping human narrative with the scientific tale, though he notes a minor criticism: the author appears to strain to find a political angle without much real success.

A more technical read, Numerical Methods in Physics with Python by Alex Gezerlis, was received for review. Contradicting expectations of a code-centric guide, the book is heavily mathematical, with high-level derivations that approach early graduate-level difficulty. While the provided Python samples are useful and straightforward once the math is clear, the book's density makes it more suitable as a reference than a cover-to-cover read, a determination Bendersky says must await further use.

History, Corruption, and the Modern World

Robert A. Caro's monumental The Power Broker stands out as a deep dive into the life of Robert Moses, the NYC park commissioner who shaped the city’s infrastructure from the 1920s to the 1960s. At over 1300 pages, the biography explores the gritty interplay of power and politics, casting a critical eye on Moses’s legacy. While forcing readers to question whether his projects truly benefited the city, it serves as a stark reminder of how corrupt mechanisms can operate beneath a bustling metropolis's surface.

Focusing on corporate methodology, The Machine that Changed the World by J. Womack and colleagues describes the lean production methods that transformed the Japanese car industry. Though insightful, the book shows its age since its 1990 publication, even as its popularized terms—Kaizen, Kanban, Just In Time—became iconic across modern industries.

From the editorial pages of history and industry, the list turns to human struggle. Roger Thurow's The Last Hunger Season offers a sobering account of four smallholder farming families in Kenya, depicting their hardships amidst the 21st century's plenty. In a similar vein, David K. Shipler's The Working Poor details the struggles of several American families around the turn of the century, tackling minimum-wage realities, welfare systems, and a host of related social issues with only a slight hint of preachiness.

Fiction, Travel, and Personal Reflection

Bendersky’s fiction selections did not fare as well as his nonfiction. Hermann Hesse’s Demian began as a promising coming-of-age narrative but devolved into metaphorical obscurity by the final third. Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone succeeds on the promise of its setting—with vivid descriptions of Alaska—but is otherwise an unremarkable romantic novel marked by protagonists making a string of suboptimal decisions.

Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary attempts to recreate the magic of The Martian on an interstellar scale, and mostly succeeds as a fun, engrossing read. However, Bendersky notes the gravity-defying plot is considerably less realistic than Weir’s debut. Peter Jenkins’s A Walk Across America, a travelogue from the 1970s, feels dated and overly flowery compared to modern examples, seemingly having earned its admiration more for kicking off a genre than for the quality of its prose.

Simon Singh’s Fermat's Last Theorem earns special mention as a re-read after two decades, fondly credited as the book that kick-started Bendersky’s adult nonfiction reading streak. While wishing it delved deeper into the proof’s technicalities, he acknowledges a more detailed approach might have alienated a wider readership.

Other titles proved more frustrating. Noise by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues disappointed with a valuable central thesis buried under more than 400 repetitive pages. Matt Parker's Humble Pi remains humorous and informative, but flags near the end when it falls back on generic programming bugs for examples.

For technical readers, the second edition of Programming Rust by Blandy, Orendorff, and Tindall serves as a thorough reference for Rust 1.50, akin to the “Stroustrup” for the language. Yet it falls short as an introduction for novices, assuming deep familiarity with low-level programming. For experts with a C++ background, it stands as a complete overview of the language, though it relies on unrealistically simple examples beyond its excellent second chapter.

Re-Reads

In addition to the main list, Bendersky revisited four books this quarter without elaboration:

  • Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
  • The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
  • In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
  • California: A History by Kevin Starr