The Hidden Half of Nature by Montgomery and Bikle

This book's full title is The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery and Anne Bikle. I have just recently read this book. My other recent book reviews are all books that I read in the past year, but had not had time to put up reviews.

What I found interesting that does not seem to be mentioned elsewhere is in the beginning they talk about the start of life, including how life got to eukaryote life. Apparently there was a merger of an archaea and a swimming bacterium. This formed the first protist like pond scum. There was a second merger with a bacterium that breathed oxygen. This is our line. There was a third merger with a bacterium that did photosynthesis and this lead to plants. There are also remarks about how for every cell in our body we harbor 3 bacterial cells. There is a lot covered in this book.

David Montgomery and Anne Bikle have their own site called Dig 2 Grow. There is also a No Till site and organization as No Till agriculture has shown it does not erode soil any faster than natural process.

There are some good reviews on this book at Amazon if you scroll down the page. There is a short, but very good overview of this book at W. W. Norton Company Ltd. Lucy Rock has done an excellent review of this book for the Guardian.

Here David Montgomery speaks at a Health Conference. It is rather long at just over an hour. This is the only video I can find with one of the Authors. I can find nothing with Anne Bikle talking.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

A New History of Life by Ward & Kirschvink

This book's full title is A New History of Life, The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth by Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink. If you are interested in how life got started on earth, this is a great book to read.

One thing I found interesting is that when Brian Harland first published his theories about snowball earth, he rejected that fact that the oceans could freeze because climate modelers assured him that the planet could never have escaped. Now we know that is not true.

There are some good reviews on Amazon near the bottom of the site as usual. A number said that they found the book hard to read, but I have an interest in this subject and did not have a difficult time reading this book. There is good, but quite short review of this book at Bloomsbury Publishing. I found the review by Jonathon Keats at New Scientist quite interesting. He is right. Most animals that have ever lived have gone extinct. I doubt we are so special that we could not go extinct also. The book review by James Sullivan at Nature World News is short and interesting.

Peter Ward talks at the University Book Store in Seattle about this new book. Peter Ward also did a TED talk on Mass Extinctions.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

Rise to Greatness by Conrad Black

This book's full title is Rise to Greatness, The History of Canada from the Vikings to the present. I know that Conrad Black is quite a controversial person, but he does write well and he especially writes history well.

Jacques Poitras does a great review of this book at Canada's History. Usually I find good, well written reviews on Good Reads, but not this time. I know that Conrad Black is not a well-liked figure, but I find that he writes extremely well and I must admit I had no trouble reading this book and really enjoyed it. Don Marks of CBC called Conrad Black's history of Canada - Arrogant, misinformed and disgraceful. However, what can you expect from the CBC. Unlike the BBC, the CBC is narrow minded and extremely left wing and it is not a station for all of Canadians.

I must admit that Conrad Black's reply to his critics made me chuckle. David O'Brien of the Winnipeg Free Press gives a good and interesting review of this book.

Charlie Gillis of MacLean interviews Conrad Black. (There are two short annoying commercials in before you get to the interview. David O'Brien of the Winnipeg Free Press interviewed Conrad Black. He questioned Conrad Black's treatment of indigenous civilization in this book. Allen McInnis of Montreal Gazette has short interview with Conrad Black about the book. Jeremy Paxman and Conrad Black have an interesting discussion. Conrad Black at Ideal City gives an interesting talk about Canada's History.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth

This book's full title is The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia. I personally would like to live in this area as I would find the conformity rather stifling. The Nordic countries have done the best for any country that has tried socialism. They seem a rather practical people and they do not let debt get too far out of whack. Michael Booth is on Twitter and has his own website.

There is some good reviews of this book on Amazon if you scroll to the bottom section of this site. There is also a good review in The Guardian by Mariella Frostrup and she is right, the book is a light hearted approach to the Scandinavian counties, but he does touch on some serious subjects.

There is short video of an interview via WSJ of Michael Booth.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell

This book’s full title is The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. From this book you can learn a lot of really basic stuff of how things work. I found it interesting how quickly he thinks our world could fall apart.

Lewis Dartnell has his own web site here. There is also a separate website for this book here.

The Guardian has an interesting review by Steven Poole. All we need to have survived a cataclysm is a 3-D printer with a stock of blue prints and if we can jerry rig power to it, we easily reboot. There are a few interesting reviews at the end of this Amazon page. There are much better reviews at Good Reads.

Lewis Dartnell talks at Google about this new book of his. There is very short video that shows how to open a can without a Can Opener.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama

This book's full title is Political Order and Political Decay, From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. This book is another very long and very fascinating book by Francis Fukuyama on political order. Francis Fukuyama is always quite weighty.

There is a very good review of this book by John Gray at Literary Reviews. There is a review by Nick Fraser in The Guardian. A lot of good reviews come from UK sources, but there is also a very good one at the Washington Post by Gerard De Groot.

This is a short video by Francis Fukuyama at the Economist. It is a speech by Francis Fukuyama at Chatham House. A Q & A session starts after around 25 minutes. This video is talks by both Francis Fukuyama and David Runciman. This video is a panel moderated by Isabel Hull with John Mearsheimer, Peter Katzenstein and Francis Fukuyama at Cornell University. This introduction is long to this video at some 16 minutes. However, talks by all three professors I found quite fascinating and well worth while.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

This book's full title is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. This is an absolutely fascinating book. Harari has such a different view of history than I have read before. It starts from the beginning of time and ends at the present date. The concept of objective reality and imagined (or fictional) reality is quite interesting.

After this broad scope covering our past, he looks at our future. He sees a lot of our past and certainly our future in quite negative terms. He thinks that the agricultural revolution was awful for us humans. The great thing about this book is that it makes you think.

It is interesting that reviews either just praise this book to the sky or they are rather critical. A quote from the Strawson review is "Much of Sapiens is extremely interesting, and it is often well expressed. As one reads on, however, the attractive features of the book are overwhelmed by carelessness, exaggeration and sensationalism." Another quote is "Harari hates "modern liberal culture", but his attack is a caricature and it boomerangs back at him."

Ranjeev Dubey in Good Reads says "Every once in a decade, a book comes along that has the capacity to radically change the way we think about matters of substance. This book is one of them." Also Hedva in Good Reads says "It is amazing that such a young person could grasp the whole history of mankind, synthesize it and present it in such and interesting, coherent, fluent way."

There is a very interesting, but quite negative review by Galen Strawson in The Guardian. He points out some big flaws in this book. This review is quite different from a lot a read from reviewers that were just overall by this book. There are also quite a number of good reviews of this book at Good Reads. Tom Payne at The Telegraph also has an interesting review. John Lewis-Stempel's review in the Express might be entertaining.

Yuval Noah Harari presents this book as a course on MOOC. Harari speaks at RSA in September 2014. After a short introduction, Harari speaks to about 17 minutes into the video. This session is moderated by Tim Feilden of RSA org and ends with a Q and A. The series of lectures Harari gives are here. There are some 20 lectures divided into segments.

Also, an index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. Follow me on Twitter.