Tuesday Book Review on Monday

Five-star review for Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

This long novel starts with the premise of what would happen if something caused the moon to shatter into seven pieces (not the reason for the title) and those pieces further break up, bombarding the earth with large fragments that somehow make it through the atmosphere. The book is as long as it is because Stephenson has to explain every engineering detail of the human reaction to this as he can in infinite detail, but even all this telling is interesting.

Spoilers ahead: the first part describes what happens after the moon fractures, the second covers the attempts by humans to survive. The third, almost as long as the first two put together, takes place five thousand years later and reveals the divergences of different human groups but that they still have the same tendencies of humans today and in the past. It could have been a second book in a duology and continued to tell how the thirteen or more groups rebuild, together or apart, since the story could use that instead of a epilogue.

It was a quick read despite the length with interesting characters in each part. I almost didn’t want it to end. 

Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg

This fascinating memoir by the NPR commentator on the friends she’s made over the years, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, stressed the importance of long friendships through the good and bad events on our lives and how those friendships can form over good meals and good conversation. I learned a lot about the court as well as the people covered in the book. I particularly appreciated the examples of how hard it was for women to advance, to earn as much as men for the same job, during the 20^th century. People need to be reminded of that to fully understand what an accomplishment it was for Ruth to become a supreme court justice. I read this for a book club and was glad I did.