March 2014 Reading List

March was mostly a non-fiction reading month for me.  Still catching up a significant number of unread books from previous years.  Only four completed:

1. Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
2. The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

I must emphasize that Weiner is not one of my regular sorts of authors.  But my wife and I listen to audiobooks while traveling in the car and this one was her choice.  I have to say though that I enjoyed this one a bit more than others we have "read" by Weiner.  That doesn't mean I'll be tackling any books in this genre by myself -- lets get that clear!

Onto the first of the non-fictions.  The Shallows covered a lot of the same ground as Moonwalking with Einstein when it came to describing how our brains work.  But what is new is the convincing argument that Carr makes to substantiate how the Internet is making it harder for us to maintain a deep extended focus on tasks.  Definitely will change my habits and give me something to encourage my family to change in their lifestyles too.

I recently found Henrietta Lacks on the Amazon 100 Books to Read in Your Lifetime and I had it in my unread library so figured I needed to do something about reading it.  I'm glad I did.  Skloot does a great job of not only telling us why Henrietta's cells are immortal but also immortalizes her family too.  And that seems way overdue!  The afterword is particularly poignant and really digs into the ethical issues about tissue culturing today.  It is by no means cut and dried and you'll be surprised how strongly you will react to these issues after completing this book.

I can't believe the Story of Philosophy was written in the 1920s.  It doesn't read as if the book were nearly 100 years old.  I have often wanted to get a good coverage of the lines of thought of key philosophers like Kant and Spinoza and this book does them justice.  Even if you don't have much interest in philosophy this is still an interesting read.  What gave me chills was how some of the ideas expressed in Nietzsche's Zarathustra became horribly twisted by the Nazis into party doctrine.  I have made a reading list of some of these guys to look into further.  Definitely NOT Kant though!