reviews

Put a bird on it... Author:  Lyanda Lynn Haupt Science in action! Not test tubes, lab rats and particle colliders, but the actually development of an earthshattering scientific theory in the mind of a singular genius.  It’s not something we get to see very often, if at all, but it’s the inspiration for Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s investigation of four critical years in the life of Charles Darwin, entitled Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent. In December 1831, the twenty-two year old Darwin set sail on HMS Beagle and spent the next four years exploring South America, from Brazil down to [...]

Growing up Gontian... Author:  Ursula K. LeGuin Ever since Harry Potter burst on the young adult literary scene in 1997, wizardry has been all the rage. But he wasn’t the first young wizard to make his mark.  Back in 1968, the acclaimed science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. LeGuin wrote about Ged, a teenager from the isle of Gont, in A Wizard of Earthsea.  I read the book long ago – when I was a teenager myself – and remember being impressed with the mysterious magic spells and the detailed fantasy world it contained.  Unfortunately, reading it again after so [...]

Reality, Destiny, Loss, Adventure: Life of Pi has it All Author:  Yann Martel We are all storytellers of our own destinies and our perceptions inform the realities we see, the lies we tell, and the stories we choose to believe. Fifteen-year-old Piscene Molitor Patel, who prefers to be called Pi as in the unlimited and ultimately indefinable mathematical number, has spent his entire life in Pondicherry, India, living in his father’s zoo and helping to take care of the animals. From earliest memory, the possibility of anthropomorphizing the dangerously beautiful creatures around him has lead his father to reveal their true [...]