'The End is Always Near' by Dan Carlin

The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin (3.0)

I am a fan of Dan Carlin’s podcasts and always appreciate his common-sense point of view. Here he reviews various stages in history to show how humans continually come close to the abyss, though as yet have not obliterated ourselves (yeah!?). I found the first half less interesting, maybe due to the known history and my ‘well, we made it through that one’ attitude. The second half, particularly as he discusses the atomic era, was appropriately scary and thought provoking. I had not realized the extent many in the government were pushing the use of the atomic bombs on the USSR (prior to them having the technology) to prevent the anticipated cold war. Carlin’s timing for this book is slightly off (published Oct 2019) as he talks about a possible global pandemic right before the actual pandemic. I read the paperback and would have appreciated an additional note putting that in perspective.

'Why Fish Don't Exist' by Lulu Miller

Why Fish Don’t Exist, Lulu Miller (4.0)

It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. It is part history, part memoir, part biography and I think I was just confused at first. The author goes looking for a figure to write about and anchor her unraveling life. She picks David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist famous for finding and naming a large part of the fish population we recognize today and also an early President of Stanford University. I’m glad I was unfamiliar with Jordan as it felt I was learning about him along with Miller, which made many of her discoveries quite shocking. Jordan apparently has skeletons outside the closet (he was a strong supporter of eugenics) and inside (I’ll let you find out). While I normally don’t enjoy science mixed with memoir (Miller adds much about her life), once I surrendered to being an observer of her journey I appreciated the book more.