aaronj21's Reviews (912)

This volume was an interesting, brief history of the written texts that eventually became the Christian Bible. More than merely a history of the documents, the renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong shows how text and reader have influenced each other back forth over time and how successive generations bring their own meaning to this book. It may surprise some readers to learn that taking every word of the Bible as literally true is a radical and very new concept. Historically speaking, the faithful have seen the Bible as a site welcoming revelation, interpretation, and sparking endlessly renewable insights into the issues of the day, not as a factual, literal document with a single, narrowly defined meaning to any given passage. Armstrong is a fantastically knowledgeable writer and she sums up even the most esoteric religious debates in ways the reader can grasp and internalize, even a subject like the Arian Heresy is handled succinctly in a few pithy pages.
However, despite Armstrong’s lively, readable style and mastery of her field, she shines as a writer in the hopeful and understanding tone she strikes throughout the whole book. Yes, she seems to say, religious history and doctrine are difficult subjects and yes, religious interpretations are used to justify all sorts or atrocities, but that isn’t all there is. The author consistently points out a common vein of compassion and charity in this and other sacred texts and speculates optimistically on how these compassionate elements may eventually win the day against narrow-minded, hateful interpretations of scripture. Though I myself am a nonbeliever, this line of reasoning nevertheless gives me hope for a less hateful future on this planet where the majority of people are still religious to some degree.

Most of this book was just what was promised in the title, a brief introduction to key concepts in nuclear power. The book starts from the early history of nuclear physics and goes on to detail how this new science was applied, first in war and then later for civilian power purposes. The writing was a little dense at times but the brevity of the book and helpful charts and appendix made it comprehensible.

But.

There appears to be at least one, glaring inaccuracy in this book that I haven’t been able to resolve, and I can’t help but wonder about the rest of the volume in light of this apparent error.
“At Chernobyl, the authority of the reactor operators was not questioned when they began an illegal reactor experiment in May 1986" (pg. 68).

The author mentions the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 being an “illegal reactor experiment”. This immediately struck me as an odd statement. Illegal? In what way? The safety test on the night of the disaster was certainly not something unknown or unauthorized to the managers of the plant. Everything I’ve read about Chernobyl seems to agree that pressure to complete the safety test on schedule from higher ups at the plant lead to an untrained team conducting the test at a time later than expected (it was meant to be done by an earlier shift of workers who had been trained for it but got postponed). There were certainly many issues with how the experiment was carried out but “illegal” doesn’t seem to fit the bill. The author’s point could just have easily been made by highlighting the issues with the test, the timing, the untrained staff, the lack of failsafe measures without referring to the test as illegal. This wording seems to imply the reason the accident happened at all was because plant operators were breaking actual laws or regulations in place at the time which simply doesn’t seem to be true.

The author mentions this several times, always referring to the “illegal experiment”. I haven’t yet found anything to indicate this safety test was illegal in any traditional sense of the term.

It’s possible the author was referring to this information from the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, stating that in a previous edition it had said the test was in violation of regulations at the time but has revised that statement in light of new info.

“It was stated in INSAG-1 that blocking of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) was a violation of procedures. However, recent Soviet information confirms that blocking of the ECCS was in fact permissible at Chernobyl if authorized by the Chief Engineer, and that this authorization was given for the tests leading up to the accident and was even an approved step in the test procedure” (INSAG-7, 1992, pg. 10).



The author also says the “illegal experiment” was carried out in May of 1986. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place on the night of April 26 1986, not in May. It’s a very small part of a book that covers a lot of ground (and most of it fairly well), but this date is very obviously incorrect and should have been caught in editing.

References

IAEA. (1992). Chapter 3: The Accident. In The Chernobyl accident: Updating of INSAG-1: INSAG-7: A report by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (pp. 10–12). essay.

Irvine, H. M. (2011). Nuclear power: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

This was a fantastic book! It had excellent world building, compelling, interesting characters and a refreshingly unique and endlessly fascinating magic system. Jemisin creates a fantastic, brutal world plagued by intermittent cataclysms called Seasons, on a single supercontinent called the Stillness, humans fight for survival against a planet that seems bent on destroying them.

This was a book I stayed up late finishing because I couldn’t stop and I’m so glad there are two more books in the series.

A delightful, spooky book that perfectly captures the isolated, superstitious character of one of literature’s most famous fictional towns, Sleepy Hollow. Henry provides the best of both worlds, building on the lore of Washington Irving’s work while adding a modern, fresh interpretation of the characters and story. Thoroughly enjoyable.

This book, first in a long and well-loved fantasy saga, actually (mostly) lives up to the hype. The world Jordan creates feels vivid, historically rooted, and unique, with elements of other fantasy works clearly providing inspiration but transformed into something quite distinct. Jordan is a talented writer who excels at both characterization and dramatic action, making this rather brick like book readable despite its length. My only complaints are mild and may well evaporate with the series’ continuation; they boil down to some odd pacing choices (chapters and chapters of minutely described travel and a few short action packed chapters towards the end), the story being told too much (though not quite exclusively) through the main character’s eyes. Overall it was a great first installment and after reading I am committed to seeing the series through.