So, What Are You Reading?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Ted Heiks, Jul 27, 2013.

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  1. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Michael Fellman's Citizen Sherman.
     
  2. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Herding Hemingway's Cats by Kat Arney, 2016, Bloomsbury Sigma. Paperback runs $18.00 US, 9.99 UK.

    If you are interested in molecular genetics and genomics, and want some light reading on the subject (as opposed to a heavy textbook), this is a book to consider.

    It's written very well and reads easily like a novel. It considers the human genome project and its aftermath, particularly the attempts to make sense of the torrents of information provided by automated gene sequencing.

    It pays a lot of attention to what journalists call "junk DNA" (biologists don't like that phrase, for reasons given in the book). It discusses the variety of things included in this category, such as DNA sequences producing non-coding RNA (nobody's sure what all that RNA is doing) and more peculiar things like transposons. There are discussions of how genes are turned on and off and so on. (The ENCODE project concluded that some 80% of 'junk DNA' isn't junk at all, but like everything, that's controversial.)

    Some excerpts from the introductory chapter:

    "When he and I were students at the end of the 1990s, we were reading DNA in tiny chunks, a few hundred letters at a time... Today an entire human genome can be read in a few days. But rather than clarifying the content of our genes and how they work, things have got very complicated indeed.

    The problem is that we were not put together by an anally retentive designer with the celestial equivalent of thick rimmed glasses and a hipster beard. Instead, our genome has been sloppily patched together over eons by evolution, the master bodger. And for want of a more poetic way of putting it, it's full of rubbish." (p.16)

    "By 2001, after a decade of work...UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton linked up by satellite to reveal humanity's inner secrets to the world... Clinton claimed that 'Today we are learning the language in which God created life.' And lo, there was much hyperbole.

    There's no doubt that putting together a draft human genome - and it was definitely a draft, full of errors and gaps - was a hugely impressive technical and collaborative achievement, and I don't want you to think that it wasn't.... It took tens of thousands of years for humanity to get to this point, so it was definitely worth a pat on the back and one hell of a party. But when people started to look closely at the contents of our genome in the years following the glitzy announcement, it turned out that maybe things weren't quite what many people had expected. For a start, where were all the genes?"(p.19)

    [It appears that by some counts, humans have somewhat less than 25,000 protein-coding genes. How does that compare?]

    "There was perhaps an assumption that because humans were clearly the most awesome animals on the whole damn planet, we would need a huge number of genes. Not so. Many organisms have far more genes than we do. Water fleas the size of grains of rice have 30,000 genes... Plants are particularly blessed in the gene department: grapes have around 30,000, golden delicious apples clock in at 57,000, and wheat has nearly 100,000...

    There's also the question of what is a gene, anyway? ... They specifically excluded stretches of DNA that are read into RNA... but don't actually direct the construction of proteins. As we'll see later on, there are a huge number of these so-called non-coding RNAs produced across the genome, yet little clarity about what they all do and which, if any, of them should fall under the banner of 'genes'." (p.21)

    "One of the most intriguing results of the human genome project was the confirmation of earlier, less sophisticated analysis suggesting that about half of our DNA is stuffed full of short repeated sequences. As an example, your genome is peppered with about 1.1 million copies of a small repeated DNA phrase called an Alu element, around 300 DNA letters long, which we share with other primates like chimps and gorillas. Alu, like many of the other repeated elements in the human and other genomes, has come from a transposon - a kind of genetic 'virus' that can randomly copy and paste itself around the genome, making more and more versions of itself. Exactly when and where we picked it up isn't entirely clear, but it must have invaded since primates split off from other mammals around 65 million years ago." (pp. 21-2)

    So that's basically what the rest of the book's 250 pages are about. And it gives a taste of the non-textboookish writing style.
     
  3. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read William Tecumseh Sherman's Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, by Himself, volume 1.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 12, 2017
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    For a change of pace I read the first two books in the Borrowed World series by Franklin Horton. Prepper apocalypse fiction, basically, and covers all the typical survivalist tropes competently (if not especially imaginatively).
     
  5. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Francis Trowbridge Sherman's Quest for a Star.
     
  6. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I'm currently halfway into reading Sundance by David Fuller. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693905-sundance

    It's a historical fiction novel that begins with the premise that The Sundance Kid did not die in a firefight in Bolivia, as is commonly believed, but that he spent 12 years in prison under an assumed name, and after release has to pick up the pieces of his life. I thought it would be a western, but it becomes somewhat of a fish-out-of-water story as he finds his way to New York City looking for his wife and winds up getting accidentally entangled with the business of the Italian Mafia.

    So far, it's been not at all what I expected, but pleasantly so.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 3, 2017
  7. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read William Tecumseh Sherman's Memoirs of General William T. Sherman by Himself, volume 2.
     
  8. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Damn Ted, you are one of the most well read people I know. Good for you, make good use of your time and keep your brain active? Still going to the Karaoke bars?
     
  9. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  10. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Oh, yes, I still go to the karaoke bars.
     
  11. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Lloyd Lewis' Sherman: Fighting Prophet.
     
  12. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read David R. Bush's I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island.
     
  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Two nice ones, from the Thrift Shop. New condition, 25 cents each:
    Digital Nature and Landscape Photography - Mark Lucock
    The Country Look and How to Get It - Mary Seehafer Sears (décor - not "wear bib overalls and chew a straw.")

    Currently reading:

    The Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham: Islam and the Future of Money - Imran N. Hosein
    An Introduction to Islamic Finance - Mufti Muhammad Taqui Usmani

    Both books were free PDF downloads. I am using the second as review and prep. for studying a further book, that deals with international finance and securities markets in an Islamic context.

    J.
     
  14. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read S. C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon.
     
  15. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  16. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Basil Henry Liddell Hart's Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American.
     
  17. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Read Peter Guralnick's Sam Phillips The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll

    The story of Sam Phillips - and Sun Records, in Memphis. First recordings of Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, B.B. King, Johnny Cash ... My kind of music, my kind of writer. Peter Guralnick has about eight other books to his credit, including Searching for Robert Johnson, Nighthawk Blues and Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom. He never disappoints.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 8, 2017
  18. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Cool, I should check in to that book.
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    ¡Cuidado, amigo! It's like Roach Motel - They check in, but they don't check out ... Why? Because "The Killer" is in there!

    * "The Killer" - Jerry Lee Lewis, one of Sam Phillips' "Million Dollar Quartet." Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis and Johnny Cash.

    "My teachers were the Killer and the Hound Dog Man
    My classmates consisted of a five-piece band.." (Lee Roy Parnell - Road Scholar)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 10, 2017
  20. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    "C'mere boy, I'm gonna make you a star!"
     

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