Picture found at: https://www.melindatognini.com.au
#6Degrees
Six degrees of separation:
from a postcard to a riddle
I was going to enjoy the nice weather and read outside, and then neighbors started mowing their lawn, and I just can’t stand that noise. So then, I’m back on the computer and posting for this meme!
Using my own rules for this fun meme hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest (see there the origin of the meme and how it works – posted the first Saturday of every month).
Here are my own quirky rules:
1. Use your list of books on Goodreads
2. Take the first word of the title (or in the subtitle) offered and find another title with that word in it
3. Then use the first word of THAT title to find your text title
4. Or the second if the title starts with the same word, or you are stuck
Links will send you to my review or to the relevant Goodreads page
1. Postcards from the Edge, by Carrie Fisher
2. Too Close to the Edge, by Pascal Garnier
Pascal Garnier is an impressive French author, who passed away too early, alas.
VERDICT from my review:
The great author of French noir bluntly looks at the seemingly quiet life of a senior. Opening your door may lead you to unexpected ominous horizons and possibly to revealing a new you dormant behind a façade all these years.
3. Close to Destiny, by Adria J. Cimino
I read this book six years ago and apparently enjoyed it a lot (4 stars), but alas, even after reading my review, I don’t remember a thing about it!! Sign of old age?
VERDICT from my review:
A hat may have more to it than it looks! Evolving in between the blurred lines of reality and past experiences, Cimino focuses on relationships between people. Rich literary fiction with a twist.
4. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, by Michio Kaku
In Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku—the New York Times bestselling author of Physics of the Impossible—gives us a stunning, provocative, and exhilarating vision of the coming century based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs. The result is the most authoritative and scientifically accurate description of the revolutionary developments taking place in medicine, computers, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, energy production, and astronautics.
In all likelihood, by 2100 we will control computers via tiny brain sensors and, like magicians, move objects around with the power of our minds. Artificial intelligence will be dispersed throughout the environment, and Internet-enabled contact lenses will allow us to access the world’s information base or conjure up any image we desire in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, cars will drive themselves using GPS, and if room-temperature superconductors are discovered, vehicles will effortlessly fly on a cushion of air, coasting on powerful magnetic fields and ushering in the age of magnetism.
Using molecular medicine, scientists will be able to grow almost every organ of the body and cure genetic diseases. Millions of tiny DNA sensors and nanoparticles patrolling our blood cells will silently scan our bodies for the first sign of illness, while rapid advances in genetic research will enable us to slow down or maybe even reverse the aging process, allowing human life spans to increase dramatically.
In space, radically new ships—needle-sized vessels using laser propulsion—could replace the expensive chemical rockets of today and perhaps visit nearby stars. Advances in nanotechnology may lead to the fabled space elevator, which would propel humans hundreds of miles above the earth’s atmosphere at the push of a button.
But these astonishing revelations are only the tip of the iceberg. Kaku also discusses emotional robots, antimatter rockets, X-ray vision, and the ability to create new life-forms, and he considers the development of the world economy. He addresses the key questions: Who are the winner and losers of the future? Who will have jobs, and which nations will prosper?
All the while, Kaku illuminates the rigorous scientific principles, examining the rate at which certain technologies are likely to mature, how far they can advance, and what their ultimate limitations and hazards are. Synthesizing a vast amount of information to construct an exciting look at the years leading up to 2100, Physics of the Future is a thrilling, wondrous ride through the next 100 years of breathtaking scientific revolution.”
5. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson
My favorite biography so far this year.
VERDICT from my review:
Essential, fascinating, and easily accessible presentation of Jennifer Doudna. A must if you want to stay up to date on CRISPR and its moral questions.
6. The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, by Margalit Fox
I was very impressed by Fox’s book on Sherlock Holmes, so I really want to read this one as well:
“In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative.
When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery.
Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox’s riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean–the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen–to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers.
These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the decipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.“
My post is done, and the neighbor is done with his mowing, so now to enjoying my current read in the sun!!
📚📚📚
📚📚📚
Words And Peace 
Your comment for #3 made me laugh. Sometimes reviews don’t jog as many memories as I hope they should, which makes me wonder about how much I actually enjoyed it if I forgot it so easily. LOL. Great chain!
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I know, I was baffled! That’s also scary that I wrote this review only 6 years ago, and I can’t even remember writing it…
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Some unusual choices–that makes it so interesting!
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I always use my list of books read on Goodreads, or if necessary, from my TBR – two this time. It’s fun introducing my readers to titles they may not have heard of
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I like the look of Physics of the Future- so hopeful, the optimism, and that bright cover!
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I’m really curious about this author
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I too have some books which I read and reviewed but remember very little about… I keep telling myself: it’s not me, it’s them (for not being memorable enough). 😂 Live the Pascal Garnier shoutout! Did I tell you I found a signed copy of one of his books at a second-hand bookshop in Lyon?
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Phew, thanks for the refreshing thoughts, makes me feel less old, lol.
Wow, cool find with Garnier’s book, no I didn’t know you found that gem, so happy for you
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Solving riddles or secret codes is one of my favorite book tropes, and I don’t think I have come across much of those. Combine riddles with languages, well, that makes Riddle of the Labyrinth a must-read for me! Thanks for a very thought-provoking chain.
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Plus really this author writes so well (at least in the one on Conan Doyle)
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Excellent chain, as usual. I don’t read much non-fiction but that Code Breaker sounds good.
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It really is
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Such an interesting chain, as always, your posts are always intriguing.
I totally understand your comment about the third book, been there, done that. LOL
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And thanks for visiting my Six Degrees of Separation earlier led me via a few other books about language to
Santa Lucia by Nobel Prize Winner Selma Lagerlöf.
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wow, 1st woman Nobel Prize winner!!
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I thought she was definitely worth reading. She also wrote “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson” which you might have heard of or seen as an animated series.
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I have not, but saw this on Goodreads when I looked her up
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It’s one of the most well-known Scandinavian children stories in Europe, next to Astrid Lindgren’s and the Moomins. But they might not have made it to the States.
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I actually didn’t grow up in the US. And where I grew up in France, it was a super tiny village with no access to libraries (not even a school library), so there are a lot of kids books I have never read. Then at 10 I went to live in a big city and was made to read classics like Hugo, Balzac, too early!
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True, your village sounds almost like mine. We did have a little church library, though. I got to know many of their children’s books through my little brother who was nine years younger. And they made an animated series which, again, I saw as an adult. They might not have shown that in France, though, so even if other European countries saw this, you might not have even had the chance.
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Oh, and I didn’t have TV either
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Me neither when I was little, this came a tad later than that.
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Ah ok
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… and it was repeated a million times. LOL. Still, might not have made it to France.
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LOL!!
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It’s always interesting to look back over the archives and find things that you have forgotten about!!
Enjoyed your chain this month.
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Yes, especially when your blog has been around for more than 10 years
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This sounds like fun. I might try it, even though it’s Sunday.
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You an post about this any time
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I think I’d like to read Too Close to the Edge! Nice set of books in your link!
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It’s a really good one, fantastic author, who manages to pack so much in very short books
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An intriguing chain, and on the face of it, not quite my kind of thing. But as I re-read it, I realised that there was a lot here to enjoy, so … onto the TBR list they go!
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Yes, that’s my choice, I always work these chains with the words in the title
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