We had the annual trip to the Oregon coast to spend time with our family up there. We also had several local Santa Cruz friends join us with kids and a dog so there was a mob for dinner each night. A little free-form collaboration along with my SILs amazing kitchen skills pulled everything together to keep everyone fed, watered, wined and happy.
But one of the real joys of the annual trip is that I can completely disconnect from work for a WHOLE WEEK and read all the stuff I want to. Per usual I got Harpers, The Atlantic, The Economist (which we subscribe to), Chemical and Engineering News (weekly, it comes to ACS members) and Scientific American and assorted books.
The Books included Garry Wills "Outside Looking In" an interesting memoir from someone who was involved in a lot of the central events of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Wonderful writer, I read the excerpts of his "Lincoln at Gettysburg" some time ago and even the excerpt from this book about W.F. Buckley. Highly recommended if you have an interest in US history of the past 50 years. A quick read.
I bought a copy of E.O. Wilson's ( the Ant Man from Harvard) latest book (only reviewed in the Economist this week, more than a month later!) The Social Conquest of the Earth about how social species have come to dominate the planet (Ants, right? But humans too). I've churned through a 1/5th part of it but got bogged down.
Re-read some bits from Michael Shermer's book about how beliefs are formed. Highly recommended. It is one of the Big Questions and he does a credible job of addressing it.
yrs,
rubato
Summer Beach reading.
Re: Summer Beach reading.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
