Break No Bones

Break No Bones (Temperance Brennan #9)

Kathy Reichs, 2006

While teaching an anthropology field school on the South Carolina coast, Dr. Brennan and her students come across a recently buried body in the excavated Native American burial ground. In her search to identify the remains, Dr. Brennan stumbles across a much bigger plot - one in which the body count is rising - and her life may be at risk as well.

I really enjoy this series of books. Even though this title wasn't one of my favorites in the series, it was still a very enjoyable read. (In general, I prefer the ones set in Montreal.) There was plenty of action, excitement, drama, and science (I'm a nerd at heart). I wasn't overly thrilled with the personal drama - I'm just not a big fan of Pete - but that was a small enough part of the plot that it didn't distract me too much. I was also pleased that I was not able to see the big reveal coming, about why the people were being murdered, and I was just as unsure about whodunnit as Brennan was. 

Overall, an excellent read, and I'm looking forward to picking up the next book in the series soon. 

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton, 1990

Geneticists have discovered a new technique for recovering and cloning the DNA of extinct dinosaurs, and one man sees this as the perfect money-making opportunity. John Hammond's goal is to use this technology to open the world's greatest theme park on a small island off the coast of Costa Rica - a place where dinosaurs are displayed like zoo animals for the adoring public. But when a small group of experts are brought in to investigate the park's safety, things start to go wrong. What starts with a minor power loss in the facility eventually leads to a complete breakdown of order. And for those people lost inside the park itself, it becomes a struggle for survival against some of the greatest predators ever known.

This was a re-read for me. I first read it about 15 years ago after seeing the movie version and with the recent movie re-release, I figured it was as good a time as any to pick this one up again.

I have to say that, while I still really enjoyed this book, I like the movie better (which is very rare for me). I actually thought that most of the main characters were better developed in the movie version (Grant, Sattler, Malcolm, Hammond, Lex and Tim), and the jump-out-of-your-seat moments were more dramatic and/or scary in the film. There were more of these moments in the book, which was fun, but the ones that the movie put in (the T-Rex attack on the cars, the raptors in the kitchen) were just better done in the movie version.

I still really liked this book, though. Plenty of tense and scary scenes, good storyline, intriguing and novel concept (at least at the time it was written), and (mostly) interesting characters (I kind of hated Lex in the book). Definitely worth a read. Now I just have to go and dig up The Lost World, 

Death by Black Hole

Death by Black Hole: and Other Cosmic Quandaries

Neil deGrasse Tyson, 2006

This book is a compilation of essays that were first published in Natural History magazine's "Universe" section. Neil deGrasse Tyson is able to take complex concepts of astrophysics and make them accessible to the non-scientist, with just enough humor to make them interesting. 

I thought that this was a really good book. Most of the essays were really interesting and - more importantly - understandable! I never thought that astrophysics could be easy to understand, but Tyson writes it so that even the uninitiated can at least comprehend most of what he is writing about. There were definitely sections that made me feel really stupid, when what he was writing about went over my head, but the majority of the essays actually made me feel kind of smart for understanding it all (even if I know that in reality it mostly is over my head). I think that Tyson is a great writer, as well as being a brilliant astrophysicist, and I'm glad I picked up this book. I'll definitely be reading more by him in the future.