Category: Books (Page 1 of 10)

“Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. Dick was one of the young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, and he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Doris was a White House Fellow and worked directly for Lyndon Johnson, later assisting on his memoir. The Goodwins’ last great adventure involved opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents and memorabilia Dick had saved for more than fifty years. The voyage of remembrance revived the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this love story with America”–

A deeply moving account ever of walking the Grand Canyon, a highly dangerous, life-changing 750-mile trek.  The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. Now, in A Walk in the Park , author Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock along the rims of the abyss and the Colorado River, which flows along its bottom. Consisting of countless cliffs and steep drops, plus immense stretches with almost no access to water, and the fact that not a single trail links its eastern doorway to its western terminus, this jewel of national parks is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in one single hike than had
walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries. Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-
winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the stunning landscape in breathtaking photos. Together, they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors’ camps, present day tribal activists, and signs that
commercial tourism is impinging on the park’s remote wildness. An epic adventure, action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey,

A Walk in the Park gives us an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America’s National an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose
topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world.
Goodreads

John McCarthy, the computer scientist who coined the term “artificial intelligence” in 1955, defined it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” Nearly 70 years later, AI—as we now call it in almost jaded shorthand—is present in every facet of life. It can be used (to name but a few applications) to cheat on a college essay, treat cancer, play chess and design spaceships. It can also be used to wage war and sabotage elections.

AI is an invention that has the capacity to revolutionize human life, on a par with fire, electricity, the printing press and atomic power. Its profound importance can be gauged from the fact that the late Henry Kissinger focused more intently on AI in the last years of his life than on any other subject. In 2018, at age 95, he startled everyone by writing an essay on artificial intelligence in the Atlantic magazine. In 2021 he co-authored “The Age of AI” with Eric Schmidt (a former chief executive of Google) and Daniel Huttenlocher (an MIT professor), a book that compared the advent of AI with the 18th-century Enlightenment for its ability to shape the human mind. And now, almost a year after Kissinger’s death, we have in our hands another book, titled “Genesis,” about “artificial intelligence, hope, and the human spirit,” which Kissinger co-authored with Craig Mundie (a former chief research officer at Microsoft) and (again) Mr. Schmidt.

Henry Kissinger was one of the great statesman-sages of his time, and the brief but moving “In Memoriam” section at the start of the book describes him as a “student of the nineteenth century, master of the twentieth, and oracle of the twenty-first,” the last accolade referring in part to his drive to educate us on the complexities of AI. In “Genesis,” the Kissingerian imprint—that elegant mix of idealism and realism—is evident everywhere. The tone and thrust of the book, write its three authors, is one of “sober optimism,” which, in fact, encapsulates Kissinger’s outlook on life.

If there is a key question that animates “Genesis,” it is this: Should AI become more like humans, or should humans become more like AI? Put another way: Should we control, or be controlled by, AI? The authors stress throughout that, when it comes to artificial intelligence, the worst thing we could possibly do as a civilization—or species—is to drop our guard: “to declare too early, or too completely, that we understand it.”

If Messrs. Kissinger, Mundie and Schmidt sound resigned, in places, to the primacy of artificial intelligence in human life, it is because of the irrefutable computational and problem-solving superiority of AI—or “AIs,” as they often pluralize it, acknowledging that “there will not be just one supreme AI but rather multiple instantiations of superior intelligence in the world.” How could it be otherwise when the average AI supercomputer is (as the authors tell us) already 120 million times faster than the processing rate of the human brain?

“Genesis” is as much a philosophy book—drawing on all that is best in the Western tradition—as it is a book that grapples with a techno-scientific phenomenon. It raises tough, often disconcerting, sometimes harrowing questions. The authors point out that AI allows humans “to know new things . . . but not to understand how the discoveries were made.” The internal processes of the machine are beyond our grasp, so we must resort to a kind of faith in the machine’s logic and authority. Will the age of AI, the authors ask, “catalyze a return to a premodern acceptance of unexplained authority?” Are we, they ask, on the verge of a “dark enlightenment”?

The development of ever more sophisticated forms of AI, we’re told, is “a project led almost exclusively by private corporations and entrepreneurs.” Could corporations form alliances to compound their already immense clout, even accruing military and political power in the process? What impact would that coup have on diplomacy, global stability and the Westphalian order of sovereign nation-states?

While celebrating the role that could be played by AI in the curing and prevention of disease and talking up its potential to be an almost heaven-sent “library of pharmaceuticals” for the benefit of mankind, Messrs. Kissinger, Mundie and Schmidt address moral questions that should make us squirm. Just as we have begun to use AI to “correct” congenital disease, might we not start using it to “install congenital advantages” in our offspring, “advantages that may not belong to either biological parent or, in the extreme, to any other human”? Would we redesign the human race? “What does the perfect human look like?” they ask. “Should we attempt to find out?” Would such genetic alterations cause the human species to “split into multiple lines?”

AI even raises theological questions. If humans come to believe that they’ve been replaced by machines as the foremost intellectual entities on earth, might not some people “attribute a kind of divinity to the machines themselves, thereby potentially spurring further human fatalism and submission”? While the authors don’t offer answers, it is quite right that they have prompted us to search for them.

“Genesis” is a wise and deeply sane book. But it’s at its least convincing in its expressions of belief that our political and scientific leaders must—and therefore will—find a way to act in a coordinated global fashion to instill into machines the core values of human “dignity.” Machines, the authors write, must be “compelled to build from observation a native understanding of what humans do and don’t do.” They must, in other words, learn how to be human from the examples that humans set.

Therein lies the problem. Messrs. Kissinger, Mundie and Schmidt call for “the inscription of globally inclusive moralities onto silicon-based intelligence.” These moralities include some—Communist Chinese, Putinist Russian and Islamist Iranian—that fall far short of our own standards. Our definition of dignity is quite unlike theirs. So much so that our machines may one day be benign and merciful, while those of our foes may be exactly the opposite. 

Wall Street Journal 11/25/2024

The Restless Wave by Adm. James Stavridis pp.400

From the New York Times bestselling former NATO commander comes a riveting historical novel that charts the coming-of-age of a gifted but immature young naval officer as he is tested in the crucible of World War II in the Pacific

Scott Bradley James arrives in Annapolis, Maryland, as a plebe in the class of 1941 without a terribly good idea why he wants to be a naval officer, other than that his father was a sailor, and he wants to see the world, whatever that means. Scott and his roommate become fast friends, and, after surviving scrapes of their own making, the two fetch up at Pearl Harbor. War is brewing, and their class has graduated early. They have been sent to battle stations.

Admiral James Stavridis is an acclaimed novelist, a decorated military leader, and a great student of military history. He draws on it all to capture the experience of being storm-tossed by the bloody first years of the Second World War. Scott Bradley James is a talented young officer, but he has a lot to learn. And war will have a lot to teach him.

The Restless Wave offers a gripping account of the U.S. Navy’s astonishing progress through the first three years of the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor through to Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Coral Sea. A story of character under pressure in the harshest of proving grounds, it is written with careful fidelity to the truths of war that have made sea stories essential to the art of storytelling since Odysseus. (Goodreads)

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie’s second novel, ”Midnight’s Children” (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.

After his fourth novel, ”The Satanic Verses” (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a ”fatwa” calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In total, 20 countries banned the book. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, Rushdie survived a stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. In 2008, ”The Times” ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published ”Joseph Anton: A Memoir”, an account of his life in the wake of the events following ”The Satanic Verses”. Rushdie was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by ”Time” magazine in April 2023.

Rushdie’s personal life, including his five marriages and four divorces, has attracted notable media attention and controversies, particularly during his marriage to actress Padma Lakshmi.

“A sixty-year saga of frostbite and fake news that follows the no-holds-barred battle between two legendary explorers to reach the North Pole, and the newspapers which stopped at nothing to get–and sell–the story. In the fall of 1909, a pair of bitter contests captured the world’s attention. The American explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook both claimed to have discovered the North Pole, sparking a vicious feud that was unprecedented in international scientific and geographic circles. At the same time, the rivalry between two powerful New York City newspapers–the storied Herald and the ascendant Times–fanned the flames of the so-called polar controversy, as each paper financially and reputationally committed itself to an opposing explorer and fought desperately to defend him. The Herald was owned and edited by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., an eccentric playboy whose nose for news was matched only by his appetite for debauchery and champagne. The Times was published by Adolph Ochs, son of Jewish immigrants, who’d improbably rescued the paper from extinction and turned it into an emerging powerhouse. The battle between Cook and Peary would have enormous consequences for both newspapers, and help to determine the future of corporate media. Battle of Ink and Ice presents a frank portrayal of Arctic explorers, brave men who both inspired and divided the public. It also sketches a vivid portrait of the newspapers that funded, promoted, narrated, and often distorted their exploits. It recounts a sixty-year saga of frostbite and fake news, one that culminates with an unjustly overlooked chapter in the origin story of the modern New York Times. By turns tragic and absurd, Battle of Ink and Ice brims with contemporary relevance, touching as it does on themes of class, celebrity, the ever-quickening news cycle, and the benefits and pitfalls of an increasingly interconnected world. Above all, perhaps, its cast of characters testifies–colorfully and compellingly–to the ongoing role of personality and publicity in American cultural life as the Gilded Age gave way to the twentieth century–the American century”–

A powerful memoir from Katalin Karikó, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines

“Katalin Karikó’s story is an inspiration.”—Bill Gates

“Riveting . . . a true story of a brilliant biochemist who never gave up or gave in.”—Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Katalin Karikó has had an unlikely journey. The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in an adobe home that lacked running water, and her family grew their own vegetables. She saw the wonders of nature all around her and was determined to become a scientist. That determination eventually brought her to the United States, where she arrived as a postdoctoral fellow in 1985 with $1,200 sewn into her toddler’s teddy bear and a dream to remake medicine.

Karikó worked in obscurity, battled cockroaches in a windowless lab, and faced outright derision and even deportation threats from her bosses and colleagues. She balked as prestigious research institutions increasingly conflated science and money. Despite setbacks, she never wavered in her belief that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó believed that someday mRNA would transform ordinary cells into tiny factories capable of producing their own medicines on demand. She sacrificed nearly everything for this dream, but the obstacles she faced only motivated her, and eventually she succeeded.

Karikó’s three-decade-long investigation into mRNA would lead to a staggering achievement: vaccines that protected millions of people from the most dire consequences of COVID-19. These vaccines are just the beginning of mRNA’s potential. Today, the medical community eagerly awaits more mRNA vaccines—for the flu, HIV, and other emerging infectious diseases.

Breaking Through isn’t just the story of an extraordinary woman. It’s an indictment of closed-minded thinking and a testament to one woman’s commitment to laboring intensely in obscurity—knowing she might never be recognized in a culture that is driven by prestige, power, and privilege—because she believed her work would save lives.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“A knockout collection. … Sharp-edged satire deceptively wrapped like a box of Neuhaus chocolates, Table for Two is a winner.” —The New York Times

“Superb … This may be Towles’ best book yet. Each tale is as satisfying as a master chef’s main course, filled with drama, wit, erudition and, most of all, heart.” —Los Angeles Times

Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

“A sixty-year saga of frostbite and fake news that follows the no-holds-barred battle between two legendary explorers to reach the North Pole, and the newspapers which stopped at nothing to get–and sell–the story. In the fall of 1909, a pair of bitter contests captured the world’s attention. The American explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook both claimed to have discovered the North Pole, sparking a vicious feud that was unprecedented in international scientific and geographic circles. At the same time, the rivalry between two powerful New York City newspapers–the storied Herald and the ascendant Times–fanned the flames of the so-called polar controversy, as each paper financially and reputationally committed itself to an opposing explorer and fought desperately to defend him. The Herald was owned and edited by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., an eccentric playboy whose nose for news was matched only by his appetite for debauchery and champagne. The Times was published by Adolph Ochs, son of Jewish immigrants, who’d improbably rescued the paper from extinction and turned it into an emerging powerhouse. The battle between Cook and Peary would have enormous consequences for both newspapers, and help to determine the future of corporate media. Battle of Ink and Ice presents a frank portrayal of Arctic explorers, brave men who both inspired and divided the public. It also sketches a vivid portrait of the newspapers that funded, promoted, narrated, and often distorted their exploits. It recounts a sixty-year saga of frostbite and fake news, one that culminates with an unjustly overlooked chapter in the origin story of the modern New York Times. By turns tragic and absurd, Battle of Ink and Ice brims with contemporary relevance, touching as it does on themes of class, celebrity, the ever-quickening news cycle, and the benefits and pitfalls of an increasingly interconnected world. Above all, perhaps, its cast of characters testifies–colorfully and compellingly–to the ongoing role of personality and publicity in American cultural life as the Gilded Age gave way to the twentieth century–the American century”–