I am in the process of reading word-for-word Bill Gates’ outstanding book, “How to Avoid Climate Disaster.” As I have underlined and marked up the entire hard-copy book.
I only read non-fiction books to learn and grow.
Other recent books that I have read and highly recommend are the following:
The Gene: an Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
This is a fascinating and at times somewhat technical book. Paul Berg, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, describes it this way, “The Gene is a magnificent synthesis of the science of life, and forces all to confront the essence of that science as well as the ethical and philosophical challenges to our conception of what constitutes being human.” Kirkus Reviews states, “Sobering, humbling, and extraordinarily rich reading from a wise and gifted writer who sees how far we have come, but how much further we have to go to understand our human nature and destiny.”
I read “the Gene” once through word-for-word, underlining each word as I deliberately marked up the work for the next almost four times that I went through it. I have investments in genomic/healthcare stocks. As the author states, “three profoundly destabilizing scientific ideas ricochet through the twentieth century, trisecting it to three unequal parts: the atom, the byte, and the gene. The book is quite enlightening.”
Next I read “Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age” by Sanjay Gupta, MD. Bill Gates wrote this about the book: “This is a frontier where we can dramatically improve human life, ‘Keep Sharp’ is a helpful primer for anyone who wants to better understand brain function and how to improve it.”
I read the book once, underlining each word and marking up my hard book.
The next book I read was “Successful Aging: a Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives” by Daniel J. Levitin. I read this superb book, underlining each word and marking it up, then I carefully went through it four more times which resulted in a written review for my daughter, Garden District Book Shop here in New Orleans, and myself.
“Successful Aging” was an eye-opener for me. This neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist, and bestselling author is simply amazing. “Successful Aging” is full of well founded statements such as, “You may feel that your personality is fixed, inflexible, and was determined in childhood, but science has shown otherwise.” I highly recommend this book, “Successful Aging,” for everyone regardless of one’s stage in life.
Next I read “The code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson, my favorite author other than myself. Mr. Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane, had been CEO of the Aspen Institute, Chair of CNN, and editor of “Time.” He is the author of “Leonardo da Vinci,” “The Innovators,” “Steve Jobs, “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life,” and “Kissinger a Biography,” and coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.” I find that reading such extraordinary books illustrates good qualities for me to emulate. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have parents to emulate do so quite naturally, hopefully and prayerfully only the good qualities.
But I have found there are admirable attributes to measure up to in many, many, many others. Mr. Isaacson is such a master at writing about his subjects that I find engaging, yet human, characteristics on full display throughout his insightful works. “The Code Breaker” and his tracing of the history of Jennifer Doudna, and her colleague who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for uniting CRISP, is a novel way to edit genes. The book has a wonderful story explaining the history and others involved in the research back to Darwin and Mendel up to the dramatic conclusion of the book. I hope to do a complete review of this stupendous book soon.
Next I read, underlined, marked up, “The Splendid and the Vile,” a saga of Churchill, family, and defiance, a best-selling book by Erik Larson. The was very much a call to action for me personally. While the Prime Minister, Churchill, led so valiantly during the Battle of Britain. I seek to be a pathfinder within America against Xi+ of the Communist Chinese Party.
As I started this blog, currently I am highlighting as I proceed through for the second time “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” by Mr. Bill Gates. We must elude tremendous waste and corruption which will accompany pending legislation of “President” Biden without solving the intricate details of our climate crisis as adroitly described by Mr. Gates.
More to come.
