THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH: THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION by Richard Dawkins

NONFICTION (SCIENCE)

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins (Free Press, 2009, paperback $16.99)

Reviewed by Laird Addis, Jr.

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, subtitled The Evidence for Evolution, is a wonderfully entertaining description of the multiple kinds of facts that make up the basis for the evolutionary account of life on earth.  I never tire of reading Dawkins’s books, for he is the best writer around on evolution for the non-specialist.  He uses examples and pictures in a convincing way as he tells his story of how many kinds of evidence—from DNA studies to carbon dating to the fossil record to embryology (“How could complicated organisms like humans have come from single-cell organisms?  You did it yourself in only nine months.”)  to direct observations of evolution in laboratories and nature, and much more—all come together to ground the only plausible account of how life developed from its origin more than three billion years ago.  Like Darwin, Dawkins does not try to explain the origin itself, but only how life evolved once it did exist.  There are hundreds of books on evolution, and I have read many of them, but this is possibly the best single book one could find for anyone wanting to understand how scientists know of the fact of evolution.   

COURAGEOUS by Randy Alcorn

(NOVEL)

 

Courageous by Randy Alcorn (Tyndale House, 2011).

Also available on Kindle and as an audiobook.

Reviewed by Kevin Penrod, Jr.

Randy Alcorn based this book on the screen play written by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. The story focuses around a group of men who are police officers and one who is having trouble with finding work. This book deals with their struggles as officers, husbands and fathers and keeping God at the center of their lives. They all have their own struggles throughout this book and somehow learn to overcome them.

I highly recommend this book. Is you are looking for a book that has everything: action, comedy, sadness, and a guest appearance from the Carpenter-King himself, this is the book for you. I recommend the book over the movie because there is a lot more to it. The book includes subplots, characters, and back story not in the movie. A very powerful inspirational read.

THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD by Russell Shorto

(HISTORY)

Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World:  The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (New York: Doubleday, 2004; Vintage Books, 2005).

Audio Version: Recorded Books; Unabridged edition (July 30, 2004).

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

Native Americans did not sell Manhattan to the Dutch for $24. That is just one of the myths that spread after the British took control of New Amsterdam in 1664. The rich history of the Dutch colony is being reclaimed as 12,000 pages of surviving records are at last being translated by Charles Gehring.

The way Shorto tells the story of the founding and early years of Manhattan makes it almost as engrossing as a novel. At the center of the tale is Adriaen van der Donck, the young lawyer who lead the opposition to the autocratic practices of Willum Kieft and his successor as director-general, Peter Stuyvesant. I confess that my original interest in this story stemmed from the role that Cornelius Melyn, my eighth great-grandfather, played in these events. I was glad to find him mentioned a number of times, but I would have found the book fascinating even if I had had no genealogical relationship to Manhattan.

New Amsterdam, in contrast to most of the British colonies, was a polyglot, multi-ethnic society many of whose people valued religious liberty, free trade and individual rights. We can still learn from much of their history. I highly recommend this book in both print and recorded versions.

ANNABEL by Kathleen Winter

(NOVEL)

Annabel by Kathleen Winter

(Black Cat Publishers, New York, 2010), 461 pages.

Reviewed by Chuck Dayton

Annabel is a first novel for Kathleen Winter, a Canadian writer. She has previously published a compilation of short stories. The setting for this novel is a small town on the coast of Labrador. Winter begins her story in March of 1968 with the birth of a baby in the village of Croyden Harbor, Labrador. Three people know the story of the birth of the baby, later named Wayne: his father Treadway, mother Jacinta, and the mid-wife and friend, Thomasina (who secretly called the baby Annabel, named after her child who perished in an accident). The baby was born a true hermaphrodite, with the anatomy and physiology of both male and female. A decision was made to surgically and medically treat the baby so that the child would grow up as a boy.

Some of you may have read Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides published a few years ago. That was my first experience with the topic of having a parent choose the gender identity of a child at birth and having the child grow to adulthood, finding out later in life his/her true identity. The current novel Annabel is a slightly more serious treatment of the topic than was Middlesex. Both novels, I think, provide an amazing insight into the world of gender identity and crisis in later life.

The description of life in Labrador during the 1970’s is an eye opener. Life is hard, the men working almost entirely outdoors year round, and the women engaged in domestic chores 24/7. That makes the subject matter all the more interesting. Both parents know the double gender identity of their child, one bent on making Wayne a man, the other wanting to make sure his feminine side is nurtured as well. I won’t give away any more of the plot, but there are medical and psychological crises, with twists and turns in the plot that make for a very interesting read.

Before you shy away from this book thinking the topic may be too “heavy” or too “weird”, please give it a try. I think you will find yourself fascinated and engrossed.

SCRAMBLED EGGS SOUPER by Dr. Seuss

(CHILDREN'S BOOK)

Dr. Seuss, Scrambled Eggs Super (New York: Random House, 1953). Other editions also available.

Note: Dr. Seuss is the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel.

Reviewed by Lucas Fernandez

My favorite Dr. Seuss book is Scrambled Eggs Super. Peter T. Hooper went out and got all the eggs to cook them, to make the best scrambled eggs. He got eggs from all the birds he observed or heard of. They were make-believe birds.

I liked the pictures and the rhymes and the names of the birds. I like it when Grandpa reads it to me.

© 2012

THE PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain

(NOVEL)
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (Ballantine Books, 2011). Also available on Kindle.

Reviewed by Sally Dayton

The Paris Wife is a fictionalized version of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage. The story follows Hemingway and Hadley Richardson as they meet and fall in love in Chicago, eventually moving to Paris so Ernest can become part of the vibrant arts community there during the 1920’s. McLain details the pair’s separate family issues so that the reader has some insight into what might have drawn them together as lovers. The novel is written mostly from the perspective of Hadley.

Much of the story revolves around Ernest’s interest in bullfighting, the writing of The Sun Also Rises and the “characters” in their lives who end up coming alive in the story he is writing. This book is enjoyable not only for Hemingway enthusiasts but also for anyone interested in the literary history of the period. Many famous Modernists make appearances in the book, including Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.

The story covers five years, the length of Hadley and Ernest’s marriage. The last segment of the book is a summary of the rest of their lives until Ernest dies in 1961.  I thought it seemed tacked on and unnecessary since most people are aware of how Hemingway's life ended. I don’t think that it really did anything to illuminate their marriage, which is the focus of the book.

I would definitely recommend this book.  It is well written and engaging.

© 2012.

THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE by Orhan Pamuk

(NOVEL)

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage International, 2009, paperback $15.95).

Reviewed by Laird Addis, Jr.

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk is yet another great novel by the Turkish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.  I have read all of his novels (at least all that have been translated into English) as well as his memoir of growing up in Istanbul, and may have enjoyed this one the most.  It is a perhaps slightly improbable love story that takes place mostly in Istanbul over several years, in the 1970’s and 80’s, and involves at many levels the conflicts of the traditional Muslim culture of Turkey with the secular, European- oriented culture that the founder of modern Turkey, Ataturk, established after the first world war.  There is much description of Istanbul itself (the city I most want to visit of those I have not yet visited) and the surrounding area, especially where the wealthy went (and probably still go) to get out of the city in the summer.  The history it tells during the years of the story includes the military coup of 1980, and its immediate consequences.  Finally, the story includes a wonderful kind of self-reference insofar as the author is himself a minor character in the story but with a twist not to be revealed here.  (Vintage International, 2009, paperback $15.95)

(Pamuk, incidentally, was a student in the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop in the 1980’s, which was then located in my own office building.  So I must have seen him many times, before he was famous.  The University hoped to give him an honorary doctorate a few years ago, but because of death threats against him by Islamic fanatics, the University decided it couldn’t give him adequate security.)

© 2012