Books digest: October–December 2021

Eli Bendersky’s quarterly reading list covers aerospace history, fiction, engineering tomes, and a few misses. Here’s a condensed take on the highlights and low points.

Space and science

Chasing New Horizons

Alan Stern and David Grinspoon’s account of the New Horizons mission to Pluto is told by its principal investigator. The book is dense with scientific and engineering detail, but surprisingly engaging is the extended discussion of NASA politics leading up to mission approval. A fascinating look at how a major planetary mission gets green-lit and flown.

American Moonshot

Douglas Brinkley’s young readers edition on JFK and the space race is a concise history, though it ends abruptly with Kennedy’s assassination. The reader is left wondering why the narrative didn’t continue to the Apollo 11 landing.

Alien Oceans

Kevin Peter Hand explores the possibility of life on ocean worlds like Europa and Titan. The book excels at conveying the scientific process – particularly how researchers infer a salty, liquid ocean beneath Europa’s icy shell from remote observations. Hand has a Sagan-esque gift for the wonder of science.

Engineering and technology

Site Reliability Engineering

The “Google SRE book” by Murphy, Beyer, et al. is a dense collection of essays on running large-scale systems. Best are the descriptions of Google’s distributed systems and their design and maintenance. It’s redundant in places – natural for a multi-author volume – and hard to read in long stretches. For anyone building a modern SRE/DevOps organization, it’s indispensable, but expect a slow read.

The Ray Tracer Challenge

Jamis Buck’s guide implements a ray tracer in any language, via unit tests and pseudocode. The sequence is well-designed and fun, especially when learning a new language. However, the author deliberately avoids explaining why the formulas work (stated in the preface). That makes debugging painful: without intuition, the only recourse is comparing code line-by-line against the pseudocode. Good, but it could be much better with more “why” and less “how.”

How to Walk on Water and Climb on Walls

Mechanical engineering and biology professor David L. Hu covers animal motion research – from mammal urination timing to insects in rain and shark-skin-inspired robots. Each chapter covers several findings and the robots built to mimic them. Well-written and interesting throughout.

History and biography

Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World, 1914–1948

Ramachandra Guha’s second volume on Gandhi is comprehensive on the man, but less effective as a history of India during those years. The detail is overwhelming – including Gandhi’s celibacy and unusual economics – and the author’s attempts to step back for a unified view are too rare. For learning about Gandhi, it’s great; for the broader historical context, it falls short.

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History

Ward and Burns’ detailed history draws on both American and North Vietnamese perspectives. It’s thorough, though despite its aim of balance, the interpretation clearly leans left. Good, but not as neutral as it aspires to be.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr

Compiled by Clayborne Carson from King’s writings, notes, and speech recordings, this offers deep insight into the civil rights movement from its most iconic leader. King’s writing and oratory shine; the sermons reproduced here evoke comparisons to ancient prophets.

Fiction

Largo pétalo de mar

Isabel Allende’s family saga follows Spanish refugees from the civil war through their escape on the SS Winnipeg in 1939 to life in Chile and Venezuela. A solid choice for the annual Spanish-language read.

Code Talker

Joseph Bruchac’s short young-readers novel about a fictional Navajo Marine code talker in the Pacific is based largely on real events and people. A quick, enjoyable read.

Whereabouts

Jhumpa Lahiri’s short novel about a middle-aged single woman in an Italian city is a collection of loosely connected vignettes. Not much plot, but the writing evokes mood beautifully – Lahiri at her strengths.

Exodus (re-read)

Leon Uris’ historical novel, revisited.

Skip these

A Decent Life

Todd May’s ethics book was, per the reader, “not a good use of my time, at all.”

Wanting

Luke Burgis on mimetic desire is puzzling given its reviews; found it shallow and barely readable.