What I've been reading
"Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by David Levithan and John Green, as an audibook. The book takes place from the viewpoint of two teenage guys named Will Grayson who live in the greater Chicago area. One is gay, closeted and depressed. The other is straight and best friends with a very out and very large gay teenager named Tiny Cooper. In a fun twist, the gay author writes the chapters with the hetero Will and the straight author writes the chapters with the gay Will. The life of the two Will Graysons intersect in the middle of the novel, and their life trajectories are changed forever. I don't want to say too much to spoil this book, but I LOVED it. Not only does Tiny Cooper give a little fat-acceptance speech that totally warmed my heart, but the book also has a positive portrayal of a straight teenage boy being best friends with a gay teenage boy that you hardly ever see in YA fiction. Highly recommended.
and
"Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel" by Michio Kaku. I was wondering if it'd be worth reading since science changes so fast and this was published in 2008, and I found it *is* a little bit outdated - some things he's mentioned coming up in 2009 or 2016 have already happened, for instance. Overall, though, it was wonderfully fun. Kaku divides the "impossibilities" into three categories, ranging from technologies we're just on the cusp of developing ranging up to the third category with things like precognition, which violate the known laws of physics. You get a primer on basic physics, quantum theory and string theory along the way. Kaku doesn't *just* know his physics, he knows his classic and modern sci-fi really well, and gives lots of fun examples of how ideas that were once considered science fiction inspired real scientific developments. I loved this and plan to seek out some of Kaku's more recent books.
My full comments on both books here.
and
"Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel" by Michio Kaku. I was wondering if it'd be worth reading since science changes so fast and this was published in 2008, and I found it *is* a little bit outdated - some things he's mentioned coming up in 2009 or 2016 have already happened, for instance. Overall, though, it was wonderfully fun. Kaku divides the "impossibilities" into three categories, ranging from technologies we're just on the cusp of developing ranging up to the third category with things like precognition, which violate the known laws of physics. You get a primer on basic physics, quantum theory and string theory along the way. Kaku doesn't *just* know his physics, he knows his classic and modern sci-fi really well, and gives lots of fun examples of how ideas that were once considered science fiction inspired real scientific developments. I loved this and plan to seek out some of Kaku's more recent books.
My full comments on both books here.