This Will Change Everything edited by John Brockman

This Will Change Everything is a compilation of 125 essays written by some of today's most prestigious scientists.  Mr. Brockman asked these thinkers one question, and had them write a 2-5 page essay on the topic. The question:  What development do you expect to see in your lifetime that will change everything?

Many of the concepts and ideas are incredibly intriguing. The most interesting theories were the ones that involved space travel, and the discovery of life outside of planet Earth.  The implications of discoveries such as these on humanity and life as we know it would be incredible, and it is very interesting to see what the leaders in fields such as astro-biology and evolution have to say about the matter.


Among the other theories about what the future might hold are the development of artificial intelligence, a cure to aging, creating life, advanced robotics, climate change, and planetary destruction. The advantage to the book is that anyone interested in any type of science will probably find at least one or two chapters incredibly interesting.

A disadvantage is that some of the scientists interviewed came up with some really far fetched notions, such as downloading consciousness into a computer, and living forever that way. Is it possible?  Maybe. Is it likely in any of our life times?  Probably not. Another disadvantage is that there are a handful of essays written by actors, artists, movie producers, etc. I was curious as to what these prominent figures in art were doing in a book about science. However, the majority of the essays were in fact written by scientists, and most of them did write about advances in their own fields.

Overall, I think this book is a must read for anybody who is interested in science, and who would like to get a glimpse as to what prominent scientists are working towards (or in some cases, working against) today.  It is very informative, and it is exciting to see what advances may be in store for us in the not-so-distant future.

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

I loved Dante's Inferno. Yes, it was hard to read due to a rough translation, but I still thought it was a great work of Art, very powerful and influential, especially for it's time. So when I heard that there was a book called "The Dante Club", a murder mystery about a serial killer who kills his victims in accordance with the tortures in Dante's seven layers of Hell, I thought to myself "this is a can't miss"

I don't think I have ever been more wrong. I hated this book. I don't think I even got past the first few chapters. I tried, I tried really hard. But I just couldn't do it.

I felt that the author was more interested in filling the novel with gross gorey fluff for shock value than telling a good story. I felt nauseous while reading the description of the first murder scene. I am all for a lot of detail in a book, but this took it way to far. I tried reading on after that, but I was mostly bored and my mind kept drifting back to the gruesome description of the murder, so I couldn't focus on what was really going on in the story very well.

So I would recommend this book if you either want to be bored, or you want to be grossed out, but other than that I would pass.