Category: 2022

this year i have:

• read 117 books
• written 42 opinions
• bought 94 books

full title of the book is “the lady tasting tea: how statistics revolutionized science in the twentieth century”, and the content matches it accurately.

this book is a valiant effort to described mathematical discoveries without a single formula. as the author says in the foreword, his wife convinced him to write a nonmathematical book about people who made the statistical revolution.

my overall rating is that “the lady tasting tea” was a useful book to read, and at times even enjoyable. by the end of it i don’t know any more about statistical methods of analysis, but have much better understanding why said methods are everywhere in modern science.

the novel is part of “wayfairer” series, but what i love about this series is that they all stand on their own, and even can be read out of order. in this one you get to live through an adventure with the crew of one space ship. at first i got strong “firefly” tv show mood, but the similarity ended with the setting. the plot and character development was deeply unique.

if you liked “..angry planet”, it goes without saying that you would like the rest of the cycle. beyond chambers, i’d say you could check out robert sheckley’s short stories – good old classics, that mostly aged well.

p.s. if i could change one thing about becky chambers books, it would the titles. they are so difficult to remember.

there are many, many books about english language, as one would expect. however, since the subject continuously evolves, each subsequent book has something new to say, including this one. of course, it’s light pop-science, you won’t become a champollion of the twenty first century after reading it, but does every non-fiction book has to be useful?

dr deisseroth knows one thing – optogenetics, he knows it well, and is eager to take the reader on the journey of discovering it.

i appreciated author’s transparency about the context. he was clear where it was so called pure science and where it’s fictionalised narrative. after finishing the book i felt like having learnt something new about psychiatry as a profession.

avni doshi is an immensely brave writer. the subject of bad relationship between mother and daughter is almost taboo in modern english-languaged literature. at least, when i looked for anything that is fiction, and not of self-help genre.

antara, the narrator, is in the middle of a crisis – her mother is seemingly falling victim to dementia. this puts antara into unresolvable bind – she has no warm feelings towards her mother while experiencing massive pressure to fulfil her daughterly obligation and care for the frail parent. that pressure is both external – traditional patriarchal society – and internal – through growing up in such society.

reader, following antara’s hardship, really can’t judge her. her childhood was such that it’s a miracle she got through it, no thanks to her mother. at the same time, there is mother’s side of reality, adding a ton of nuance. quickly, the narrative gets hazy, reality is shaky, and nothing is clear. the only thing you can be sure of is that both of them had incredibly difficult, traumatic lives.

the novel felt so real. there is no clear distinctions between bad and good, no neat resolution of confict.

i am cautious of recommending this book, because it is a heavy one, and the more you empathise with it, the more difficult it is.

p.s. this book was first published in usa under the title “girl in white cotton”, and “burnt sugar” is the title for uk edition. isn’t the latter so much better?

i imagine that many people are familiar with this work either via the book or, most likely, via the movie. i technically watched the movie first, as in – i was in the room when the movie was on tv. and since i rarely make effort to avoid spoilers, i knew the key plot points when starting the book. nevertheless, i had great time reading “the martian”, (which makes me more entrenched in the opinion that fear of spoilers is often taken out of proportion).

by the way, i’d never picked it up, if not for the book club.

“the martian” is nearly perfect holiday read. i can’t think of any counterindications for it.

the book consists of two parts, each corresponding thematically with breasts and eggs. in the first part protagonist’s sister was obsessed with getting a breast enlargement surgery, and in the second part protagonist herself was obsessed with getting pregnant.

of course, this is gross oversimplification of all the themes that the novel touches upon. the reader gets to know natsuko’s dreams, fears, traumas of the past, and hopes for the future. there is struggle to find meaningful job, pondering what it means to be lonely these days, why people should and should not have children. one book, so many thoughts.

other works of mieko kawakami are on my to-read list after reading “breasts and eggs”. thankfully, quite a few of them are translated from japanese to english.

obviously, “iron widow” is written for a specific audience, but which book isn’t? so, while i’m very much into this book, i can imagine that someone would be bored or annoyed by (see my opinions of “the antropocene reviewed” and “noise damage”).

from the ‘technical’ point of view, “iron widow” sits firmly within boundaries of the young adult fiction, which is not meant as criticism. you get exactly what it says on the tin, aka the blurbs are not misleading (doesn’t happen often enough in my opinion).

it’s a story of a girl running away from a horrible home situation and trying to build a new life from scratch. at first i was almost bracing myself for a tragedy, to the extent that i asked my friend whether the book has happy ending. it does.

apart from the story itself, one of my favourite things in ths book is how casually sci-fi and supernatural elements are treated. it’s a wild mixture yet no one bats an eye, and people just roll with the existence of space travels and soul deals with demons.

also, i like how the cover image makes sense only after you read the novel.

i would recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi, isn’t transphobic, and wants to restore a little bit of faith in kindness of strangers.