As science advances, it becomes harder for the average person to keep up with what is going on in areas that have become more and more specialized. Understanding the vocabulary is itself a challenge. A term like quantum physics is becoming too broad – and how many of us even understand what it means?
Richard Holmes in The Age of Wonder talks about a different time, approximately 1800, when poets could still understand, discuss, and write about new discoveries, and the average educated person could grasp what was going on. “Science” was a new word to describe the excitement and advances of the age.
It was a time of discovery. There were first visits to Tahiti, Hawaii, and the African interior. William Herschel and his sister Caroline developed new telescopes and realized there were millions more galaxies (never mind stars) out there, and that the universe was not static but evolving. Humphry Davy articulated the scientific method and started the branch of science known as chemistry. Men doffed their hats when they watched a balloon actually rise from the ground under its own power.
The book was sometimes funny such as when Davy, writing to the woman he was wooing, told her that her letters caused a sensation in him higher than “exhilatory gas.” True, he was doing air/gas experiments, but still.
This nonfiction book is too detailed, but it gives a good description of the wonder and fears of people as new information contrasted with old beliefs. It gives a picture of the time which was the beginning of today’s technological revolution.
For a giant change of pace in fiction, there is Leonora Carrington who is both a painter and writer. Her Surrealist paintings are full of unusual images and her short stories follow suit.
In “The Oval Lady” she features a ten-foot-tall adolescent who can turn herself into a horse. There is “The Debutante” whose main character sends a dressed-up hyena to take her place at dinner. The stories increase in weirdness from there.
But the points of these stories are ideas that a 21st century reader can embrace. Carrington doesn’t want women to be confined to expected, strait jacketed roles. She doesn’t think women exist only to inspire men but are capable of being great artists themselves. She wants to be free to innovate and that she certainly does.
Her stories are just a few pages long and can be found free online. It’s easy to read one or two to get a taste, and you might be inspired to read a bit about Surrealism. I read them with an art museum book group and learned about a different world.
In Rogue Justice, Stacey Abrams’ main character is out for revenge. Hayden has been wronged by the system, specifically military justice and the courts, and she retaliates on a grand scale.
Hayden was made to feel powerless and now she will literally take away power from everyone else. In this thriller we are tutored on details about the US electricity grid – and how susceptible it is to a terrorist attack. So many cyber security organizations are mentioned it is hard to keep track. The main character is a brilliant idealist hot on the trail. We recognize the criminally inclined president (during his first term).
I admire Stacey Abrams, the woman from Georgia who served in its House of Representatives, has been responsible for expanding voting rights, plus finds time to write novels. This however, isn’t my favorite kind of mystery. I like something cozy that I can relax with, not something difficult to follow that makes me worry about Armageddon. For those who like something intricate, fast paced, and exciting, it might be just the thing.
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Too many books too little time. Your mini reviews are too inviting!! Thanks for the tips!!