Chapter Adventure Reading Challenges (Formerly GXO) discussion

The Motif (theme) for March is ...

“It’s All Geek to Me” - Read a book where technology, science, math, or engineering plays an important role in the story.

Share with us! Which book did you read and what did you think of it.

Klara and the Sun

• Sea of Rust - C. Robert Cargill
- Dystopian/Sci-Fi
- Finished: March 6th
- 4 stars on Goodreads
That was depressing as shit….but fascinating at the same time. I’m wrestling with what my rating should actually be, because some aspects I would rate a 3, and others would get a 5. So I’ve landed on 4, but I probably won’t bother keeping this on my shelf. Ugh. I liked it, but I didn’t at the same time.

“It’s All Geek to Me” - Read a book where technology, science, math, or engineering plays an important role in the story: Challenge completed.

The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Lawrence Powell

I wasn’t as taken with the book as I thought I would be. It’s a great idea, but not well done. A big problem is the way the book is set up. The chapters are interviews with different people, yet they all sound pretty much the same. So, though the subjects are different, it could well be the same person speaking. I think it would have worked better if each chapter had been written as a story of what a certain person was going through, rather than them describing a certain situation.

And for me, the last chapter sounded too much like preaching, as nuclear power seemed to be the author’s choice in saving the planet. Could very well have been (like all other solutions, it’s a little late,) but not every “con” was covered. And the idea of maybe doing something about the size of the population was never addressed.

Still, there were some interesting scenarios as to what we can very likely look forward to. Sort of unnerving was the author having the United States taking over Canada. What was done to Mexico in regards to Texas (“settling” someone else’s land and then stealing it,) could be the playbook used with Canada.

Dissolution by Nicholas Binge

Fantastic book!

Challenge complete!
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

This book is about Baseball. How the Oakland A's and Billy Beane changed the game. It is technical, statistical, and pretty close to the movie. Yes, I know the book came out first, but the movie follows the book as far as the Oakland A's journey. It also delves into the history of baseball statistics and sabermetrics.

Since I do have a numbers background in Math, Finance, and Accounting, I did enjoy reading all about the numbers and how it applies to baseball.

I read Harvest by Tess Gerritsen.
An all too believable horror show of the way money influences who lives and who dies when it comes down to choices, and who has control of those choices.
My Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Catching up on posting.

I read Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt. There were sections I only understood in the general sense, but I'm so glad I read it. Very fascinating and deserves as much attention as Hidden Figures (and really, it's own movie!).