Not a Good Spiral

Spiral: trapped in the forever war by Mark Danner
New York : Simon & Schuster, 2016.
267 p. ; 24 cm.

Spiral may make you angry.  Spiral may make you sad.  Whatever your reaction, Spiral is a timely and urgent book that you should read.  Danner, a veteran reporter makes a very damning case that in the reaction to the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government has embarked on an unending security/military mission that has increased the spread of global terrorism, has fostered a dangerous and antidemocratic culture of fear, and has perhaps forever destroyed significant parts of the Constitutional framework of US law (and wrecked the already weak framework of international laws of war and human rights that emerged out of the ruins of WWII).

His book is not easy reading.  He presents the details of torture and lawlessness committed by US agents that were the hallmark of the Bush years - none of which were (as required by law) investigated, and some of which (e.g. mass surveillance and assassination) have been codified and expanded by the Obama administration.  He pointedly notes that Obama - by protecting the torturers of the Bush era from prosecution - has essentially made the strict US and international laws against torture all but meaningless, likely guaranteeing that torture will be committed by US operatives again in the future.  He also notes that the expansion of secretive war operations -whether by drones or special forces - has made US military actions free of any democratic oversight.

Danner also presents strong evidence to bear on the fact that not only has the mult-trillion dollar war on terror not ended global non-state terrorism, but has lead to a vast growth in the numbers and reach of global terrorism.

He ends his book with a few suggestions of how the "forever war" could be reigned in and perhaps ended.  They are steps that were unlikely when the book was published and that are clearly not going to happen for at least four more years based on the elections of November 2016.  It's  a heavy book, but well written and researched.  For anyone concerned about the future or interested in the recent past, it offers much to think about.

Creator and Destroyer

Influenza Virus - graphic from the CDC.

Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
x, 122 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 22 cm.

This wonderful little book shows how science books for the lay reader should be written.  It's smart, intense, surprising, accessible, and interesting to a fault.   Not bad for 122 pages!

Of course, all of us know something about viruses - colds, flu, HIV, and rabies are well-known viral diseases - but ask someone what a virus is, how it works, and you are likely to get some significant head scratching.  With this book, Carl Zimmer helps you get a basic understanding of viruses: how prolific they are, how strangely they straddle the border between the what is alive and inanimate, and how much all life on earth is inextricably bound up with these extremely small (with a few exceptions) carries of genetic code.

Planet of Viruses does a wonderful job of revealing the workings of viruses in manageable chapters covering topics such as the common cold, influenza, HIV, HPV, and viruses in the oceans (yes it is teeming with them!).  The book may leave you with more questions than answers, but it will make you intensely aware that we really do live on a planet of viruses - and will hopefully stoke your curiosity to know more about these deadly, dangerous, and life preserving entities.

This is a science book I will highly recommend.

Taste of Ashes

Ashes by Ilsa Bick
New York : Egmont USA, 2012.
465 p. ; 21 cm.

This book continues my trend of generally not being a big fan of zombie or zombie-type books.  I found it interesting enough, and readable - but I never got lost in the book, neither in the plot or in the characters.

Ashes, in a nutshell, tells the story of Alex, the teen protagonist who is recently orphaned and suffering from a terminal brain tumor when the novel begins.  She is out hiking in a remote area of Michigan when massive electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) sweep the planet - killing billions and essentially destroying modern civilization as we know it.  Additionally, the EMPs turned nearly all teens into vicious zombie-like hunters who are fast and smart.  For a good plot refresher, take a look at Bick's website where she recaps Ashes for those about to start in on book 2, Shadows.  

To me, the novel is essentially a teen adventure / romance / melodrama melded onto a post-apocalypse nightmare world with lots of danger, gruesomeness, and skin of the teeth getaways.  If you like that sort of thing, then I think you'll love Ashes.  If not, you'll be like me and think, "Ok, that was entertaining, but I don't think I'll read books 2 and 3."