I’ve been going through a period of Spring Cleaning. Really, it is a period of shucking possessions I no longer use (and, if I’m really, really lucky, also shucking habits that no longer serve me). Basically, it is one big, painful cycle of creating piles of things to go to the trash or to AMVETs followed immediately by the creation of another pile. (It is painful because I am unreasonably attached to my clutter. But, that’s a blog post for another time. Maybe I’ll review that Konmari book everyone seems to be in love with.) While doing all of this I’ve been listening to books on physics, philosophy, and meditation. The meditation and philosophy books are obvious and probably the subject of next month’s This Month in Reality. The physics books seem obvious to me and I hope after you read this post they will be obvious to you, too. I’m a pretty smart person but beyond basic Newtonian physics and some of the basic math of quantum physics, I’m stumped. I don’t get it. Or, I do get it but only after it has been explained to be in a metaphor. And, since you have to use a metaphor for the universe why can’t that just be a metaphor for some aspect of life? We’re already kind of stretching the truth. And, why can’t I contemplate that while I’m trying to decide if I should keep a pair of heels I’ve only ever worn to vacuum in at home?
Anyway, this month I listened to A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions By Randall Munroe.
tl;dr: these are both awesome. I loved them. You should read them.
The best thing about A Brief History is that I got to spend a lot of time giggling like a 12-year old boy when the narrator said, “hot body”. The bigger something is, the hotter it has to burn. Whoa, Mamma! (Yes, I am aware of my incredible immaturity.) But, I also got to marvel at a lot of things about the universe. Like, time began when the universe began. The concept of time, the scientific concept of time, literally has no meaning outside of our universe because it is a dimension of our universe. There is no time before time.
That still gives me shivers.
And, I got to marvel at all of the cool physics stuff. Like quarks come in the following flavors (yes, flavors): up, down, strange, charmed, bottom and top and colors: red, green and blue. It is funny that they have colors because we’re not talking about something that can be visibly perceived. Wait…that’s not how I want to say that. There are colors outside our spectrum of vision. I want to say that this color property doesn’t go beyond the atom. Color is just another metaphor here for how charges interact with one another. There’s an entire theory of quantum physics that deals with chromodynamics. In my mind, this involves an amazing light show. That can’t possibly be the case but please don’t disabuse me of this notion. And, did you know that protons have 2 up and 1 down quark and neutrons have 2 down and 1 up quark? Yes, I was surprised by that, too! There are also gluons in there, too. But, it is now unclear to me what gluons do (except maybe glue things together?)
This book talked a lot about time and how it moves and its place in the universe. It also talked a lot about gravity (which is “always attractive” bada-ching!) Hawking is actually really funny in this book. I found myself laughing that things that I’m sure I was supposed to laugh at (not just at the things my inner 12 year old would laugh at.) For example, he tells an amusing anecdote about a talk that he gave at a conference at the Vatican where he proposed a framework that would do away with the notion of a divine creator. Whoops.
But, my favorite part, and perhaps the most (possibly unintentionally) philosophical part of the book was when Hawking talked about if anything in quantum physics were different, we’d all be different. That is fun to think about.
So, after I listened to this intense text of which I understood about 20%, I decided to move on to something that is meant to funny but is also very smart. What if? by Randall Munroe is a book of hypothetical questions answered using modern science. The audio book is read by Wil Wheaton. This automatically makes it 50% nerdier (and if you’re a nerd about 20% cooler. I am a nerd. And, I like Wil Wheaton. But, I LOVE xkcd, Monroe’s web comic. This is why it’s only 20%). Some of the scenarios are “What would happen if rain came in one gigantic drop” and “What if you built a machine gun jet pack”? and “what if you had a mole of moles?” I think you can see where this is going. Munroe treats each question as if it were not absurd and answers it to the best of his ability. The answers draw on real scientific data (the weight of a mole, gravity, heat, air speed, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, etc) and comes to what are hilarious and often horrifying conclusions. The book itself has great illustrations (I immediately picked it up and re-read a bunch of it after I finished listening to it) and Wheaton’s performance is outstanding.
This month I got lucky: These were two great books that I highly recommend!
I liked this a lot more then I thought I would and what a perfect time for me to read with just the French Open starting on Sunday. The players of Outer Banks Tennis Academy are gearing up to play Roland Garros. There is Penny Harrison, rising star on the WTA, who has just beat the number one player in the world. Indy Gaffney, a natural talent who is getting back in the game after the death of her mother and Jasmine Randazzano, the daughter of two Grand Slam tennis. They all of their sights set on tennis greatness and boys. Despite being billed as a romance it’s pretty heavy on the tennis. It actually has more tennis action then 
This contains a few spoilers, mostly on how the original The Selection Trilogy ended.
I have finished reading Reawakened but since it doesn’t come out until August I’m going to hold my review of it. So instead, I’m going to talk about Colleen Houck’s other series The Tiger’s Saga. The as-of-now four piece series follows Kelsey, your normal American teenage girl who travels to India to try to break a 300 year old Indian Curse. In the first book, Tiger’s Curse, Kelsey gets a summer job working for a circus, whose main attraction is a white tiger. She is immediately drawn to the tiger, not realizing that the Tiger is actually a 300+ year old Indian Prince named Ren. Ren was cursed by the evil Lokesh, who was trying to take over his kingdom and take the mysterious Amulet. He has been trapped inside a Tiger’s body ever since and is only himself for 24 minutes a day. Kelsey and Ren set out to solve the prophecy and break the curse under the watchful eye of the Goddess Durga to free Ren from his bondage. Of course it’s not that simple. Lokesh is still out there, searching for the amulet to gain the ultimate power. Ren’s brother, Kishan was also cursed, though he has been living as a tiger in the Indian jungle. And the tasks to breaking the curse are fraught with danger, magic and myths. They take them to places all around India and even Nepal and even mythical places like Shangri-La. With each successful completion of a task the brothers gain more time as themselves until they break the curse and no longer can become a tiger.
I fell in love with the series. It’s kind of a mix of Twilight and Indian Jones. I know an odd mix. It has the romance element but also the action and adventure element that keeps it exciting. Kelsey falls for Ren but is reluctant to express her feelings. Her parents died a couple of years ago and has since had trouble opening up to new people in fear that they will also leave her. Ren is an honest, sweet man who wants to do the right thing for his kingdom and others but after centuries as a tiger, you can’t blame him for fighting for what he wants. Their chemistry is apparent from almost their first meeting, which I’m counting as a Tiger. Complications of course happen when they meet Kishan. Ren and Kishan were not on the best of terms when they were cursed. There are obviously going to be some bad feelings when one brother tries to steal the other brother’s fiance. Even 300 years as tigers is not enough time to heal those wounds. Of course it doesn’t help that they both fall in love with Kelsey. It’s your classic love triangle. The good girl, who falls in love with the good brother and the bad brother. Their tiger’s fur even signifies who’s who. Ren is a white tiger and Ren is a black. As the series progresses, they become more than just good and bad. Kishan has lived in the jungle for all those years because he can’t face what he did. Houck makes a good case for why each brother would be a good match for Kelsey but there is never any doubt who she truly loves and will eventually end up with. As for the villian, Lokesh, he’s your typical bent on world domination villian and the lengths he will go to get what he wants are kinda frightening. Ren and Kishan have been supported by Mr. Kadam. His parents personal guard, who continued to live thanks to part of the Amulet he was given from the family and Nilima, Mr. Kadam several greats granddaughter. They provide a stability to the story. Nothing would get done without them.
Stop what you are doing right now and read this book. I mean it! I really wish it had been written when I was a teenager because I could have used this book. That being said, my 32 year-old self needed this book too. It works on so many levels. Taking on feminism, sexism and the unrealistic expectations of beauty on it’s head. Let’s be honest, no one really expect much from teenage girls. We expect them to be agreeable, charming, pretty, and happy and not much else. Just like you probably wouldn’t think much about a book about beauty queens stranded on a deserted island either but this is one fine satire.
2 Women, So Many Books 