This Week at the Library (27 July)

Currently I have three reviews/comments which need to be published -- Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, and two stories by James Patterson, Honeymoon and Judge & Jury.  I just read the Patterson novels yesterday, while babysitting at someone's home and reading from their library.

I finally found Galileo's Finger and am attempting to get back on track there, but entropy makes it difficult -- by which I mean the actual chapter on entropy, which falls between Energy and Atomic Theory. "Energy" and "Entropy" have been the most difficult chapters for me so far, but if I can climb that peak I think the rest of the book will be a considerably easier downhill slope. I also found Seven Ages of Paris, which I misplaced for a few days. Somehow it got between my bed's mattresses. I have no idea how that happened, but it explains why I've had to ignore the bed for the floor the past couple of nights.

At the Library...

The Big Switch, the third novel in Harry Turtledove's "War that Came Early" series arrived in the library recently. The series has been disappointing so far given that its progression hasn't seriously deviated from actual history, and when I reviewed West and East, I commented that I would abandon the series if The Big Switch was not a drastic improvement. According to the inside cover, Winston Churchill is covertly knocked off by German agents. This is promising, but the cover also hints that Japan is about to abandon its war with Russia...and the Japanese invasion of Russia's Pacific coast was the only reason I bothered reading West and East. 

Vagabond, Bernard Cornwell.  The second book in Cornwell's Grail Quest series is one I wanted to read a month or so ago after Cyberkitten posted a review, but at the time I was into Sharpe's Indian trilogy. I intended to pick up another Sharpe book today, but I've decided to follow the good rifleman as chronologically as possible, and I could not remember what follows Sharpe's Prey. 

Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob,  Bob Delaney ("NBA Referee") with Dave Scheiber. If I could produce a comprehensive list of all the books I've read in my life, you'd note that from 2003 to 2005, I read a great many books on the American Mafia, from Mario Puzo's nonfiction to questionable biographies like that of Joseph Bonanno's, A Man of Honor.   Lately I've been in a goodfellas mood, and this came up in a catalog search for "Mafia". 

I also have that Christopher L. Bennett Star Trek novel, but I...um, have to find it first.