Monday, December 16, 2013

Now reading...

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain


From BarnesandNoble.com:

The tale begins when the "yankee," a skilled mechanic in a 19th century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel, and awakens to find himself being taken as a prisoner to the Camelot of 528 A. D. With his 19th century know-how, the "yankee" sets out to modernize the Kingdom, but is opposed by a jealous court magician. Clever enough, but buried beneath Twain's humor is a serious social satire.
                      
A blow on the head transports a Yankee to 528 A.D. where he proceeds to modernize King Arthur's kingdom by organizing a school system, constructing telephone lines, and inventing the printing press.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Now reading...

"Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex" by Mary Roach


From BarnesandNoble.com:

In her previous books, Stiff and a follow-up, Spook, Mary Roach set out to make creepy topics (cadavers, the afterlife) fun. In Bonk…she takes an entertaining topic and showcases its creepier side. And then she makes the creepy funny. Intended as much for amusement as for enlightenment, Bonk is Roach's foray into the world of sex research, mostly from Alfred Kinsey onward, but occasionally harking back to the ancient Greeks and medievals (equally unenlightened). Roach belongs to a particular strain of science writer; she's interested less in scientific subjects than in the ways scientists study their subjects—less, in this case, in sex per se than in the laboratory dissection of sex