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Book description
Blends the brilliance of the scientific genius with the compassion, playfulness, and wit of the private figure "A fascinating read with more interesting material about Einstein as a human being than I have ever seen before."--Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist and bestselling author "A thoughtful and captivating account of one whom I had the joy of knowing and loving."--George Wald, Nobel Prize Laureate His face is one of the most recognized on the planet. His very name is synonymous with genius. Yet, for all the attention and countless biographies, our images of Albert Einstein rarely go beyond the eccentric and larger-than-life scientist unraveling one cosmic mystery after another. In this engaging popular biography, Denis Brian draws on ... Rest of this review on the detail page
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Reviews (2) and details of Einstein: A Life

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Review:
Let us start with some cliches. Life is a hard teacher: she gives the test first, and the lesson afterwards. Good judgement comes from experience: experience comes from bad judgement. Those who do not learn from history (or History 205) are doomed to repeat it. We learn far more from failure than we do from success. And, finally, learn from the mistakes of others: you will never live long enough to make them all yourself. If there was ever a book concept made for the RISKS-FORUM Digest library (aside from Peter's own) it is this: great boneheaded ideas from the past. In this junior edition, four volumes divide that topic into exploration, science and technology, military, and society. Unfortunately, while the essays provide decent ... Rest of this review on the detail page
(Review by Rob Slade)
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Reviews (1) and details of Great Misadventures: Bad Ideas That Led to Big Disasters

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Review:
OK, the majority of you can go to sleep. This is, indeed, mondo Canuck: the world of the Canadian. Your humble scribe has taken every opportunity to inject CanCon (and you don't even know what that is, do you?) into his reviews, but this book is for us, and us alone. Therefore, the majority of you, being non-Canadian, can hit the "next" key, secure in the knowledge that there is nothing here of interest. And, fellow Canucks, now that we are alone, I can say how much I enjoyed this book. One of the inevitable side effects of writing book reviews is that you get a constant stream of "have you read ..." advice from readers. It was one such, and in reaction to a comment I had made about a lack of etymology for the word "hoser" that I got... Rest of this review on the detail page
(Review by Rob Slade)
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Reviews (1) and details of Mondo Canuck : a Canadian pop culture odyssey

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Review:
Science writer Michael White's subtitle, The Last Sorcerer, echoes John Maynard Keynes's assertion in 1942 that Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was not the Olympian rationalist portrayed by his worshipful early biographers. Newton was a great scientist, the author acknowledges; he was also an "obsessive, driven mystic," deeply involved in the pseudoscience of alchemy, subscriber to a heretical sect of Christianity, and damaged survivor of childhood traumas that rendered him a difficult, egotistical, quarrelsome adult. White makes recent research accessible to the general reader in lucid prose that knocks the academic dust off a towering historical figure.
(Review by amazon.com)
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Reviews (2) and details of Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer (Helix Books)

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Review:
"On Thursday, April 25 [1959], Janusz Zurakowski was making his usual cautious way home from the plant in Malton, careful not to exceed the 60-mph speed limit on the 401. He noticed a flat-bed truck pull up alongside of him carrying a load of jagged white metal that looked somewhat familiar. Not quite recognizing what it was at first, he looked again and was able to discern the numbers "2," "0," and "1," blue against the white metal. Suddenly it wasn't just white metal anymore. It was RL-201, his Arrow, on it's way to Sam Lax's scrapyard." - p. 276 Forty years ago the Arrow flew at almost twice the speed of sound, driven by a pair of under-powered te... Rest of this review on the detail page
(Review by Rob Slade)
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Reviews (1) and details of Shutting Down the National Dream