The brightest light shines through

All the lights we cannot see

by Anthony Doerr

A very well written thriller.

the complex relationship between humans and insects

Insectopedia

Hugh Raffles

The first chapter "Air" talks about how numerous, varied, everywhere, visible and invisible insects are. so the relationship between humans and insects is complex: every story is unique and curious: some very delightful, others thought-provoking, a couple gross, all with some surprises, even mysteries, in unsuspected corners - as insects are.

I translated chapter G (Generosity), about cricket fight in China. it turns out also to be the most interesting one as casual reading goes.

 "Jews" is an eye-opening novel perspective about Nazis' antisemitism history, which has haunted me ever since. one phrase popped up in my mind is "the logic of logistics" - not even sure it is a correct expression - the chapter explains not only how in general people would degrade others to a non-human status and then kill with an easy conscience, but also how the gas chambers had been conceived and constructed. pure horror. I thought I had learned enough about holocaust reading "man's search for meaning".

I was most delighted by the chapter "Temptation", "gifts for sex" even in lowly insects! (or how "high-minded" is human culture, really?) and the "gifts" look very beautiful!

Dr. Raffles can be very playful. I jumped to chapter "Kafka"confidently, only to be surprised: yes, it's about metamorphoses, no, not a word about that "Metamorphoses"! But I believe he now "owes" his fans another chapter. :)

Dr. Raffles also plays with words. even excessively. I'm talking about the chapter "Ex Libries, Exempla": I lost count of how many ex'es he has used (and started to worry about the meaningless translation of only meanings)

The only criticism I have about the writing is that Dr. Raffles has a tendency to be comprehensive. sometimes in a single sentence, he has to list every more or less related event about a given time or a location, essentially expanding the long sentence into one paragraph. it's somewhat distracting and disrupting the reading flow.

Lastly, with my born insect-phobia, I have to add that I've pretty much read the whole book while holding down a mild nauseous feeling most of the time. what a unique book!

The language instinct: an evolution story

It took me a long while to warm up to the book. I had hoped for a very engaging reading - talking about languages is always fun; instead the narrative is scholastic, thorough, systematic but dull. The author has a commanding voice, serious and matter-of-factly, but lacks sparks as a writer. He does throw in jokes here and there; but those are obviously the most common ones he or others have been using all the time in the classroom.

Slowly, however, he is able to demonstrate, convincingly, that languages are very much like species evolved through time: the preserved basic motif (the universal language, the instinct), random changes in any and every other way, the fixation, and ever more changes going forward, Although this was not the first time I heard of this, the book provided all the necessary details to truly understand the concept. to paraphrase him: "to aliens, all earthlings speak just one language."

Dr. Pinker also killed my long-holding belief that "language is thinking".

The Language Instinct

by Steven Pinker

Bridges to the other land

This is one of those books I would call "bridges to the other land". The other land is where genius live. Those who are smart enough to get a glimpse of genius build the bridges. Then those who are smart enough to know oneself is not smart enough, could go sight-seeing and get smitten by the magic castles and those who dwell there....

This book in particular tells stories of mathematician genius Niels Henrik Abel and Evariste Galois. And their magic castle is "group theory". 

Other books came to mind:
Fermat's enigma by Simon Singh: how Fermat's 350 years old last theorem  ("I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.") was solved by Andrew WilesThe professor and the madman by Simon Winchester: mad professor Dr WC Minor and how the Oxford English dictionary was created
The longitude by Dava Sobel: how lone clockmaker John Harrison solved the longitude problem

The Equation that Couldn't be Solved

by Mario Livio