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The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics - James Kakalios

6/30/2021

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Date Read: May 29th, 2021
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Final Score: 9 / 10 !

​Well. The subtitle lied. This is NOT a 'math-free' exploration. But that was obvious going in, largely because Math is the language by which we consolidate descriptors of observable and calculable phenomena. Math isn't magic that controls the universe, it simply reduces the description of what's already happening down to its core components. Like taking all the nebulous adjectives out of a sentence, instead of saying 'this thing is moving quickly', it defines both the thing and the speed its moving relative to what it's moving more quickly than.
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This book while not genuinely 'math-free' does go to great lengths to elaborate on how math as a concept is really more akin to a very specific, very concrete linguistic construction than it is to a magic number-thingy.
 
The most fascinating aspect of this book, from my perspective as a tech-savvy Millennial who wasn't born in an era before Quantum Mechanics had already become an accepted part of Science to the point that it had trickled out into commercial markets, was the illuminating comment on what schism of understanding left futurist thinkers of sci-fi tech in the 50's & 60's (and even in the 70's & 80's) swinging so wildly off-base in their projections of 21st century tech... 
While I am still waiting for the hoverboard Back to the Future promised me, I have a much better understanding why such promises seemed plausible back then and yet so impossible now: our future-tech revolution struck the wrong vein of development:
  •               The problem that scientists and futurists were focused on back then was the efficient production, storage, and transfer of Energy.
  •                 The solution that we found to catapult ourselves into a digital age was one of efficient storage, transfer, and reproduction of Information.

The advent of transistors made power usage slightly more effective, but it changed everything in terms data movement and processing. I'd known that on a logical level, but I hadn't quite realized how focused the previous generation's gaze was on energy-related tech-developments until Kakalios linked aspects of futurist projections to both the cutting edge of 50's science culture, and to the pop-culture creations that came out of each new 50's science revelation. (I always knew it made sense to them, but this IS the generation who flung 3 people at the moon in a gold-covered toaster with less digital processing power than the watch I had in middle school, soooooo... 'sense' has always been something I took with a few hearty grains of salt).

Kakalios breaks everything down into understandable, bite-sized pieces, relates those pieces to both a pop-culture event and a scientific development, explains the math that describes the concept, and creates a coherent, over-arching narrative about how these concepts have both literally built and conceptually inspired our modern world.
Overall, it's an extremely well done, fantastically well researched, and deeply informative pieces of physics non-fiction that was also delightfully entertaining.

Now, I may be biased towards favoring it because I am the super geek that was glued to the History Channel and the Science Channel, watching Michio Kaku and Brian Greene discuss the physics of the impossible and taking viewers on a tour of the universe instead of watching Spongebob (which I STILL don't understand the appeal of) or whatever else was on Nickelodeon, but that doesn't really mean I had too much of a leg up in the science-understanding aspect, here. The thing about Quantum Mechanics, and about math & modern physics in general, is that it's NOT easily observable, relatable stuff. In the same way as being given a random chapter in a book is not really going to illuminate the story for you, even if its a book you've read before, unless you're VERY familiar with the context, you'll need a little help exploring it.

While I have read the metaphorical 'Quantum Mechanics book' before, but like only once and way back in high school, so I can be pretty confident in saying that anyone totally unfamiliar with the topic will still get a huge boost of in-depth understanding out of this.

I HIGHLY recommend it! Kakalios truly presents a FANTASTIC in-roads to this entire realm of study!
(And, of course, I also recommend that everyone explore a little of the Quantum Physics realm, simply because of how critically important it is to the making and maintenance of our modern world!)
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Rule of Wolves - Leigh Bardugo | Book Review

6/18/2021

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Date Read: June 6th, 2021
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​Final Score: 9.5 / 10 !
          This is one that I absolutely knew I was going to tremendously enjoy and, having now finished reading it, I have been 100% proven correct. It's definitely a delight to read and an extremely worthwhile addition to the Grisha Verse!
           The first and most important thing to mention about this book is that it is another example in YA of how to write a war that actually functions like war in real life. It's tragic that so few YA writers seem to do any research at all into that subject matter, especially considering how many YA novels are focused on it, but it's the way things are and I'd like to change it. Which starts with lavishing praise onto writers who take the time to really do the work.
            This is an exceptional look at how the process of war, and the threat of it, actually functions as an influence across all levels of society and how it is never, in any circumstances, confined to the powers actually involved in active conflict. You don't need a massive universe with 40 counties all vying for world domination, but you do need to ensure that all the countries that exist in a given reality do something to address the impending turmoil of open warfare. It was even a very accurate look at how certain players, kings and commanders and such, get pulled off the field because to lose them would be to create upheaval that a given force could not adequately recover from (it has nothing to do with them being less useful in battle, or too good a leader to risk losing, it's the simple fact of transitional turmoil that makes them too important to be unstable) and it goes effectively into the personal frustrations that such a thing causes for both good leaders and bad ones.
               This story also goes into spycraft with excellent accuracy in regards to how it affects the psychologies of everyone involved, as well as looking at how effective / ineffective it can be (and how a lot of how things pan out, whether for better or worse, is usually less to do with intentional action and more to do with relentless effort to keep the story spinning). It really got into the nitty gritty of it with exceptional clarity being given to the moral quandaries that come hand in hand with doing bad things for a good cause.
                The one thing that DID bother me a little is almost negligible: it was simply how they kept referring to Nikolai as 'Highness'. It's a thing I had noticed in King of Scars, but he was such a new king I felt it was ignorable, but by this point he should be solidly established as a 'Majesty'... Though I have seen it translated as such in some Russian lit, so maybe it's a Russian thing I'm not familiar with (I has simply assumed that the address translated strangely). Idk.
                 Anyway, plot-wise, the story developed with some EXCELLENT twists and turns that I was not expecting and yet fit within the narrative as part of a perfectly natural evolution. This one improved upon King of Scars by validating some of the boring bits in that novel without laboriously lingering over the rationales, it simply employed the results of what happened then into a present moment (with just enough recap to keep a reader up to speed, but not so much that the time it took to read the pervious installment felt wasted).
               The character development was also top notch. The admissions that anger comes from fear, that guilt is just a need for control, and that love and friendship are not things that can be affected by rationality or attempted decision-making are all wonderful and expose themselves within each and every character individually. Every character has a distinct arc of development that carries them through the motions of the main plot as a slap-dash combination of their individual stories. Zoya's development, in particular, was fantastic. I never really liked her until this one. I stopped disliking her in King of Scars but WOW did she blossom into someone awesome here (I think she's now in my top 3 of character faves for the whole series).
               Honestly, Zoya's development in this is just so far beyond exceptional that it truly makes this book a marvel. I know that it's a bit unfair to judge books on a comparative basis, but I just have to point out that Zoya's handling in this book is about 50 billion times more elegant and well-crafted than Nesta's handling in A Court of Silver Flames (which is a review I'll have up in full next week). Zoya and Nesta are both extremely angry characters with razor sharp edges and anger issues that bubble up to cover feelings of inadequacy and a soul-deep fear of pain and loss. They're both grieving lives they used to know, and suffering through a crude and unpleasant adjustment to living with trauma. From their similiar circumstances, they require similar methods to help them heal. Nesta's story follows a perfect guideline of How NOT to Handle a Person with PTSD, and is frankly 700 pages of dangerously irresponsible drivel (that doesn't work) and it wraps up in a last 200 pages with a shorthand version of what happened to help Zoya start to heal scrunched up awkwardly at the end like Maas got yelled at by a psychologist. Meanwhile Zoya's journey takes place at an even-keeled pace across the entire (much more succinct novel) and it starts right from the beginning with addressing what is healthy vs unhealthy in terms of coping mechanisms -- all while dealing with protagonists who are younger (and therefore more entitled to handle things poorly). Bargudo does an EXCELLENT job and that fact has certainly catapulted this book into my top 25 of all time!
              Over all, it was extremely well done. I will say that it was not quite life-changing, which several of Bardugo's books have been, but it was definitely one for the top 25 I've read ever, and top 10 for having read in the last decade (or rather it's the one to kick off the new list for this new decade). I am VERY excited about where this is going to lead the Grisha Verse as the series continues to develop!
(One other thing I understand but disagree with: the next one is currently termed Six of Crows #3, and it makes sense why with how exactly Kaz and his crew become embroiled in what must happen for the next stage to unfold, but it's NOT a Book 3... you can't read them in 1, 2, 3 order.... It should be a separate duology or trilogy or something, making title reference to Six of Crows, but not being part of it. Like maybe 'Five of Crows', since Matthias is dead, or perhaps 'Seven of Crows' to make note of Wylan and Hanne's now being tightly involved... honestly, idk, but it's not just Book 3...).
                  ​Still, I do absolutely LOVE this one and highly recommend it to all audiences!
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That Inevitable Victorian Thing - E.K. Johnston

6/16/2021

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Date Read: May 7th, 2021
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Final Score: 5 / 10 !

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           Well, this was an odd one. The premise was super intriguing, namely how the world would look if the British Empire never collapsed (and within that, the idea of how different things might've been if the Brits weren't racial purists in the way that they were... and if they were a helluva lot less in-bred and sickly as they've made themselves)... It was definitely an intriguing experiment in thought-exercises.

​            Unfortunately, 'intriguing thought-experiment' is really as far as this one went in terms of interest-value. There was a mildly cute love story, and some discussion of the complexities of commerce and the politics of dealing with pirates, but the fixation of genetic compatibility and the overly intense commentary on 'race' as a non-entity just got a little too solid to enjoy much else. It was a valid point, but it definitely got in the way of anything really happening. The story covers about 2 months of time, with far too many days skipped in sweeping, 'things went on like that for x hours / rest of the afternoon /  duration of the week' or such... And the angsts of the characters were laughable.


              Only August had any actual problems to deal with but the bulk of the narrative was focused on the two girls who had no real problems whatsoever. And the ending resolved with August's dad swooping into to fix things for him, and his joining the girls in realizing that none of them had any real problems to begin with... The inevitable thing was simply the obvious arrangement that ensured that none of them ever had to deal with any repercussions of a problem that was never really significant anyway.

             As a thought experiment, it was kind of neat.

            As a story? It was pretty lame.

​            I'd only ever recommend it as a low-stakes beach-read / distraction type endeavor with which to while away an afternoon.
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Allegiance by Timothy Zahn (A Star Wars Story)

6/13/2021

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Date Read: May 4th, 2021
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Final Score: 7 / 10 !

         Diving into the huge mess of Star Wars literary media has been something on the table for me for a while, but it's just such a daunting feat that I resisted for a good while longer than I probably should have (I was also still caught up in nursing the last single-minded obsession I had for Batman, and that kind of kick can only fit a single fandom at a time). 
         Still, I went from zero knowledge of the DCU to Graduate Level academic mastery over the politics of the company and the entire body of work it has produced in ~2 years. So, now that I'm edging into a major, compulsive Star Wars kick (and actually subscribe to Disney+), getting into the rest of the Storyverse's associated media has become kind of inevitable.
          I picked this one up for a mix of reasons: 1) my library had it immediately available, 2) I recognized the author's name as being one that people I respect who are already enmeshed in the fandom consider to be a good one, and 3) the plot centered around the complicated morality of Stormtroopers (I was actually looking for Clone Troopers, but the Stormtroopers seemed an acceptable compromise considering that nothing with Clone Troopers met the first 2 criteria), and honestly, I am quite pleased with it!
          Allegiance is classified as Legends, which means it's no longer Canon, which had me wary because it's hard enough to keep track of Canon in a franchise this big even when it's consistent and experienced in the proper order, but I've never been good about Star Wars and proper order... (Like at all, the first Star Wars movie I watched while actually caring enough to know its place in any given rendering of the timeline was Rogue One...). But *shrugs*. Now, I'm diving in with lead weights in my boots, same way I did a few years ago with the DCU.
          This one is set about six months after the Death Star blows up at the end of Episode IV, and it aptly has a dash of Luke, & Leia, & Han Solo being involved with the plot. Too much for my tastes, honestly, but I can understand why they're present.
           The examination of the Stormtrooper's complicated loyalties was AWESOME.
           I definitely loved it and I deeply enjoyed how their story played out. I would've liked just a little bit more of the wavering and waffling sort of angst that comes with the concept of committing treason to avoid breaking an oath to serve and protect, but there was enough to placate me. Mara Jade's story had the best balance of internal-narrative spent on defining views and current loyalties, but her story was a bit less compelling because nothing in it actually mattered until she actually got involved with the Troopers.

          Over all, I definitely enjoyed it. The head-hopping style of the narrative felt rather dated, but considering this was written in 2007, and written specifically to fit the feel of other  Rebellion Era lit, most of which was published in the 80's & 90's, it wasn't too unbearable (even if it was a bit jarring).
           I will definitely be picking up the next one in Zahn's Hand of Judgement duology at some point, and I'll certainly be picking up a lot of other Star Wars Expanded Universe media!
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Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (Audio Book Review)

6/11/2021

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Date Read: May 2nd, 2021
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Final Score : 8 / 10 !

           This one has been on my list of a hella long time. The waitlist at my Library was like a solid YEAR long, but I finally got it early last month, and I am DEEPLY pleased with it.
         I got this as an audio book, which is something I don't normally do (because I read print REALLY fast and it's hard for my brain to actually pay attention to a story being read aloud these days, ADD took away my ability to enjoy that around 8 years old, when I discovered I could get through the third Harry Potter in a decent afternoon...), but THIS little gem is definitely one that I enjoyed the reading of nearly as much as I enjoyed what was being read. In all honesty, I don't think I would've liked this one half as much without Anna Fields' spectacular feat of narration.
          (Mum recommended the AudioBook and wow was she right!)
          The best parts of the story came in the form of its uniqueness in terms of main character and expanded cast. Now, it took about 15% of the reading to actualy get to the point of meeting the main character, which initially irked me, but it set the scene extremely well for highlighting the fact that, in any other circumstances, translator Gen Watanabe would be in the background and unobtrusive.
           The uniqueness of the setting, which lead to the wonderful array of characters, and to the unexpected rise to prominence of Gen Watanabe, is decidedly AWESOME.
           However, like all books meant for adult audiences, it was painfully slow in developing an actual story. Unlike most adult fiction, that actually worked in its favor. The plot here follows a several-month-long incarceration by terrorists of attendants to fancy dinner party and a key theme it plays with is what happens when humans get bored (answer: dangerous things happen, VERY dangerous things).
            Also, unlike most grown-up books, this one had a point.
            This one took a situation and looked at it from a whole bunch of varied angles, but instead of just showing it to you, it made an active comment about that situation: namely that there's no such thing as 'the Bad Guys' in the real world, they only crop up in the stories that people tell to try explaining what happens in the world.
           It was definitely the best adult straight-fiction book I've read in a long while.
          That said, it was still REALLY slow and rather more boring that I generally prefer.  I did like it, though, and it was decidedly well-crafted (and EXCEPTIONALLY well-narrated), so I do certainly recommend it.
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the Bench - Meghan Markle | Picture Book Review

6/10/2021

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Date Read: June 4th, 2021
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Final Score: 0.5 / 10 !

         Whelp. This was awful.
​         I mean, I didn't expect it to be any good, but this was definitely beyond the pale of truly terrible. I don't review Picture Books often, because I think the whole category of media is a largely useless bit of capitalism (aimed at price-gouging parents far more than actually educating or entertaining kids), but there are always gems to prove me wrong and when I find them I make a note of it.

        This is NOT one such gem. But it gets a review because Megan Malarkey is Significant-TM (which is a thing I find distasteful in and of itself, because the fact that this psychopath can get such drivel published just because she's famous makes it that much harder for good writers to get published... across all categories. I'm not even trying to get published in the Picture Book medium, but I still feel bad for all the potentially good Picture Book authors who are still sending queries to the Void...
        Now, full disclosure: I did request this ARC and I did go into reading it with a distinct bias against the author. But I am well practiced at ensuring that my personal tastes do not overshadow my ability to objectively assess media based on a fairly standardized rubric.
This book is, objectively, not good.
         Though, I will say that the pictures are actually better than I anticipated. I still don't like the style of them, but it's a consistent style that is fairly pop in both the category of publishing, and among the consumer audiences that shop it. They were far more inclusive and diverse than I thought they would be, but none of that is really Ms Malarkey's doing. Props to Christian Robinson and mild approval to Random House for that bit (though the nudge of approval to Random House is way counterbalanced by the disdain cast on them by agreeing to publish this nonsense at all)...
         But regarding the meat of the story... there really isn't any. There's at most, 10 words per page.
         There's no steady cadence or rhythm in which the words flow, and worse yet, the awkwardly aligned phrases are often broken up and split between pages that require a page-turn to complete.
       The rhyme scheme is even more awkward, rarely managing to be more than slant-rhyme (but clearly aiming for rhyme, a Picture Book doesn't have to rhyme, but when it's clear that it's trying to do so, it needs to actually do it), and to manage even that much it uses vocabulary that goes WAY over the heads of most audiences (even when acknowledging that the kiddos are not the actual target audience). Seriously, it uses 2 and 3 syllable words most of the time, and then breaks out a 4 or 5 syllable word to make a sort-of rhyme every few phrases.
        And then there's that pesky target audience thing... Purportedly the story is meant to show 'the love between a father and son as through the eyes of the mother'... Which is a way too complicated concept for kiddos below age 4 to wrap their heads around. But then also... if mum is reading the story, it almost works, but it was release as a pre-father's day push, so it seems to be indicative that the father should be the one reading it (you know, to actually spend time bonding with le bebe, and actually being a father...). And beyond all that, it's a pretty basic rule of picture books that either a character that the child can pretend is THEM is the main focus or the book is addressed to the child (a la 'All the Places You'll Go' by Seuss or 'Welcome: a Guide for New Arrivals' by Mo Willems...). And this one... isn't either of those options. It doesn't even really pretend to have anything much to do with the kids... like at all.
        It's more addressed to the Father than to the kiddo, and it's all very saccharine and condescending... Like 'oh yes, some days will be hard, but that's why life is beautiful' and such. No actual argument that bad days are okay, or that good days are still worth it. It's all just 'good vibes only' and if you don't just accept that without protest, you get kicked out of the treehouse...
         Finally, the thing that I'm MOST pissed about: Megan Markle is NOT the feckin Duchess of Sussex.
        At BEST, she is Princess Henrietta of Wales.
       She has no title or role in the Firm anymore, MegXit saw to that over a year ago. Harry will always be a Prince, because that's a bloodline thing, not a job title, (and therefore, Meghan will be tangentially a Princess so long as they remain married), but Duke/Duchess is a JOB TITLE and they both quit those jobs, quite spectacularly (more on that 
HERE.).
        You don't get to say on the cover of a book that you're a Lawyer with Stark & Stark if you've quit the firm and spent the last year dragging the company's name through the mud like you've got gum on your heel... You can maybe mention it in the 'About the Author' bit, but even that is tasteless and crass. But to put it on the COVER?
         That's just disgusting.
        I admit, this is a big point of bias I have against the Sussex Psychopaths, but like, if they were normal employees of a normal company, this would be a sue-able-offense... They would owe their company millions in damages.
         And I can promise you that the bias I have against this wannabe-Royal is not just because she's flouting a title to earn money she doesn't need, or a bias against Royalty in general. In fact I LOVE real royals.
         I even like their picture books.
        Like Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan's, book 'The Sandwich Swap' is adorable, well written, and has a very poignant moral. AND the Actual, Reigning QUEEN OF A COUNTRY has put her name and title tastefully at the top of the book in small font. Her focus is on the story and the kids who will be reading it.
        Unlike Megan who has put the title that she doesn't have anymore and puts her husband (not her) at like 7th in line for the throne... Who put her name and title in the exact center of the cover and gave it a huge font that's only relatively small-seeming due to the excessively massive size of the one-word-title. Even when she was an active Senior Royal, she and Harry were third-tier, at best. The focus of the universe will always be Will & Kate, as they are the heirs and represent the future of England and the Royal Family. And Malarkey simply could not deal with the fact that she had to play second fiddle.
         This picture book is nothing but a money grab.
​

        And, in addition to not being any good, I think it's a pretty dang despicable move.
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How We Learn - Benedict Carey (Book Review)

6/6/2021

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Date Read: May 12, 2021
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​ Final Score: 7 / 10 !

         This is another book I picked up for Class and it's a fantastic start-point for anyone interested in the finer points of psycho-social neurology. It addresses the physical aspects of how the brain functions, the psychological elements of how it processes information, and the social influences that nudge both of the above to work effectively.
           
A lot of what my current research is focused on is not just the hyper-academic psychology journals or neuro-medical experiments, it's on what is accessible to the average, open public. Because the Ivory Tower of academia is like the number 1 thing that modern society is absolutely bonkers about (seriously, the WHOLE POINT of the development of libraries and public education was to make learning accessible and incentivized for the sum total of the entire population... locking shit behind paywalls that even big institutions can barely afford is just asinine). This is one of the best, ease your way in sorts of overviews that I've found. A key factor of that is in how it's accurate science and not full of gimmicky give yourself an edge lies on how to be the smartest person ever.
          It touches on the neurology, cites plenty of legitimate and historic studies in both medical neurology and psychology, and explains the conclusions in down to earth, easy to understand language that is congenial while still being accurate.
         The look at Perceptual Learning Modules is my favorite, simply because what I look at while nose-deep in the journal side of academia are the ways in which Intuition is trained, measured, and utilized in practical settings, so the PLMs are kinda my wheelhouse.
         The other great thing it mentions is called Interleaving, which I don't think Carey spent nearly enough time on. While paywalls are the biggest thing that America and upper level academia is doing wrong, the idea of disciplinary studies is the thing that education as a concept is doing wrong. Subjects are not separate. They only ever developed into separate departments because they had to argue for funding from school boards and when a department got funding, it was spent at the discretion of the department head. If the Dean of Science decided that music was lame, even though music was definitively considered a hard science for most of history, all the Science money was spent elsewhere (like alchemy or astrology...), so Music petitioned to be considered an entirely separate discipline with its own discretionary budget and such.
         I may have to write up a Culture Crit essay on the topic, because the manner in which we teach 'subjects' in school is just something that makes me want to claw people's eyes out. In short, if you're not teaching music with your math and history with your science and poetry with your politics, you're doing everyone in the universe a lasting disservice. Anyway, I really liked how Carey addressed the fact that true learning, not just memorizing for the test, is learning how to manipulate the variable rather than how to achieve an end result. It's a principle that works in math just as well as in sports, and that idea is addressed by Carey quite well.
       I also liked Carey's quote of the Henk Arts Group at Leiden University regarding their study on perception motivations with Bisaldrops (ie, if you're thirsty and stuck in a room, you notice things that relate to water / liquids more easily and remember them better than if you were locked in the same room while not thirsty). They address the idea of motivation directly and excessively affecting the ability of the brain to perceive the factors of its environment and how the idea of the "body's basic needs" includes the things needed by the mind.(There's probably another Culture Crit piece in there about Mazlo's Pyramid of Needs being outdated bullshit, but that's a rant for another day.)
         In short, I liked this book. It's a good survey of the scientific state of learning psychology and a great toe-dipping start point with accessible, accurate prose.

I definitely recommend it for anyone even a little curious about how our brains actually manage to work their magic!
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the Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

6/2/2021

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Date Read: May 20th, 2021
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Final Score: 8 / 10 !

​           I have come to realize that I simply adore Amie Kaufman. I still think it's a little weird that she writes almost nothing on her own. but she seems to pick her co-authors very well and I absolutely love everything I've read with her name on it.
           This one is no exception, in fact I might like it best of all I've read thus far! 
           First of all, it's a gorgeous world, richly imagined and deeply developed with intricate nuance and a vibrant liveliness that makes both cultures feel very real.
           I did wonder about the rest of the world, because surely 2 tribes of humans cannot be the only cultures left on the planet, but at the same time, the limited tech of the one and the utter indifference of the other does very well to explain away the seeming smallness of the world.
           ​I deeply enjoyed the conflation of magic vs technology and religion vs science here, it was laid out very well how similar the two sets of concepts are and why preaching science at someone is just a aggressive an impolite overstep as preaching religion at someone. While respect for science and for academia in general needs to be cultivated in the modern world we live in, accepting the working of science does not make you a better person on any account than someone who does not (and you telling them that they are ridiculous, backwards, and idiotic doesn't help the problem). 
            It's also only a respect for science in the barest terms if you cannot articulate WHY science ought to be accepted and followed in a manner that DOES delineate it from religion. (After all, if you can't explain how an airplane stays in the sky, how is believing that it will any different from someone believing in magic carpets or dragons?)Because the problem with religious dogma and psuedo-religious science is not that one is right and one is wrong, it's that one can demonstrably prove its concepts and can be wholly and fully understood by anyone given the time and genuine effort to do so. The reason people doubt science is largely because the people who accept it cannot explain it any better than a preist or imam or rabbi can explain the Divine. It's not only a problem of ignorance on the side of those who don't accept science, it's also a problem on the side of those who only accept science as a replacement for religion and understand it no better.
               The PROBLEM, therefore, is an over all lack in nuanced education.

            I LOVE when topically simply love stories get at concepts like that. And this one looks at it explicitly and discusses it repeatedly.
            Sadly, it doesn't go into the fact that the solution is a total rehaul on the entire world's educational system, but still, even making the first statement is unexpectedly deep for a YA romance story. ^_~
            And the romance is fun, too! It's well crafted, adorable, and believable in every way... Even if the insta-attraction is still a little over the top and the connection the characters forge comes a little overly quick, there are environmental pressures and cultural reasonings that make such romantic alacrity reasonable.
            I saw the big betrayal coming from a mile off, and while I think it could've been handled slightly differently to make it hit a little harder, I really enjoyed the way that every character fully believed that the all things they did, even the very worst of them, were done for the right reasons.
            I am eager for the the next book in the series, particularly as the last chapter ended with an unreliable narrator dropping a hint that may or may not be a game-changing truth and I am CONCERNED. ^_~
But, I have to wait until January... *sigh*.
            Still, GREAT book, I highly recommend it!

            Fully appropriate for the younger YA crowd and as a transitional for the particularly eager Middle Grade kiddo!
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