RenoVous

  It's not what I'm currently reading, but it's the topic that reminded me we haven't had a Book Club this month! Ian Fleming died on this day, 1964. Dr. No was written in 1958, and his first Bond book, Casino Royale , was written in 1953. The final book released, after his death, was The Man with the Golden Gun.  His publisher then released a collection of short stories that would make up later Bond movies, Octopussy and the Living Daylights. I've only read the one in photo, and it was enjoyable. ** As for what I'm actually reading, I started a book recommended by my aunt and my sister, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I'm in the early stages, but it's setting an interesting stage. What are you reading??

  Released fully in 1922, James Joyce's Ulysses  takes place in a single day - June 16, 1904. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential books in the English language, and it is especially celebrated in Dublin. I have a cousin Molly Bloom, her mother's a big fan, and a few years ago they were in Ireland for this day.  They attended a reading and had lunch at the Davy Byrnes pub. In the book, Leopold Bloom has a Gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy there. Ulysses has been on banned lists for being "obscene."  In fact, there was a trial in the United States when a literary magazine, The Little Review, published a chapter in April 1920.  The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice filed charges against the editors under the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it illegal to send obscene materials through the US Mail. The episode did include Leopold masturbating on the beach.  Sexual inner monologues are throughout the book, as well as d...

  I picked this up from a used bookstore sale because the cover was interesting.   And I like a good haunting. I don't always like journal entries as a narrative, but I can feel it building up to something. *** Today is the birthday of Douglas Adams, author of the superb,  A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read the complete series back in 2020, and I definitely recommend. In addition to those novels (which includes a short story), he also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency  and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul .  He co-wrote a short story with Monty Python's Graham Chapman, which was based on a skit. "The Private Life of Genghis Khan" So what are you reading?

  Born on this day in 1928, Maurice Sendak revolutionized children's picture books. His parents were Jewish Polish immigrants, and his childhood was affected by the deaths of many family members in the Holocaust. He was 12 when he decided to become an illustrator, inspired by Fantasia.   In 1947, he was published in Atomics for the Millions,  a textbook written by his high school Physics teacher.  He would continue to illustrate for other authors throughout the 50's. In 1963, Where the Wild Things Are  was released and praised as, "the most distinguished American picture book for children."  Even in 2012 it was voted number one picture book. The book was the first in a trilogy, followed by In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There,  the latter of which came out in 1981.  The series is meant to represent psychological development from toddler to pre-school to pre-adolescent. In 1996, Sendak received the National Medal of Arts.

  Physics John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton: "For foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." They used physics to find patterns in information . Chemistry David Baker: "For computational protein design." Demis Hassabis and John Jumper: "For protein structure prediction." They cracked the code for proteins' amazing structures . Physiology or Medicine Victor Ambrose and Gary Ruvkun: "For the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation." Tiny RNAs with profound physiological importance . Literature Han Kang: "For her immense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Biobibliography Peace Nihon Hidankyo: "For its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again." The grassroots movement of atomic ...

 Author Todd Borg at Lake Tahoe. I mentioned him about a year ago, when I picked up Tahoe Moon  from the library. More recently, I bought a used copy of Tahoe Night. Yes, he keeps the Tahoe theme.   Books I unfortunately missed a small talk and signing at the bookstore at the end of July, so I'm turning back to his book.  I'm not doing great with the Kindle read on my phone anyway.

  On this day in 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald had his first book published, This Side of Paradise. He started the novel while at Princeton.  After three years in college, he left to join the military.  While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, daughter of a Supreme Court justice.  At the time, she rejected him, afraid he wouldn't be able to support her.   He moved back to New York and finished his work, becoming the youngest author ever published by Scribner's.  Now with fame and fortune, he convinced Zelda to marry him. In 1922, he completed his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned. While in Europe (1925), he wrote The Great Gatsby, which was then followed by Tender is the Night .  During this time, Zelda's mental health deteriorated, a theme seen in the book.  It was published in 1934. Fitzgerald passed away in 1940, leaving behind a fifth unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which was released posthumously. He wrote 178 short stories in...

  Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, died on this day in 2004. The collection includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  He had turned in the manuscripts just months before his passing. He therefore missed all the acclaim for his work - the novels as well as the adaptations in film and comics.  By 2019, the series had sold more than 100M copies worldwide. Born in Skelleftehamm in Northern Sweden, Stieg moved to Stockholm in the 60's with his parents, where he began working as a graphic designer for a news agency.  He later became an investigative journalist, exposing right-wing extremist groups. In the series, Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist as well, initially hired to prove the story he's being accused of libel over.  Lisbeth Salander is the gifted private investigator and a skilled computer hacker.  In the first, they take down a CEO who has been abusing and murdering...

  Physics Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, Anne L'Huillier They have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy. Background Chemistry Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, Alexei Ekimov For the discovery and development of quantum dots.  These tiny particles have unique properties and now spread their light from television screens and LED lamps.  They catalyze chemical reactions and their clear light can illuminate tumor tissue for surgeons. Background Physiology or Medicine Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman Their discoveries were critical for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Background Literature Jon Fosse For his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable. Background Economics Claudia Goldin Her research since the 80's has given us new and often surprising insights into women's historical and contemporary roles in the labor market. Peace Narg...

Today marks the anniversary of when Thoreau left Walden in 1847.  He moved in with fellow writer and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who inspired him to write in the first place. It was at the age of 27 that Thoreau decided to live in nature, building his cabin and living off his garden for two years.  During this time, he wrote the above collection of essays, and after being arrested for refusing to pay taxes, he wrote Civil Disobedience. The Gutenberg Archive has them together,  Here . So I think I may start on that, as I only had to read excerpts in school, and otherwise I've just been reading short stories that I've read before.  ( Nightmares & Dreamscapes ).   "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

 W.E.B. Du Bois was born on this day in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In 1884 he became the first African American graduate of the town's racially integrated high school, and went on to enroll at Harvard in 1888.  He received his BA in 1890, MA in 1891, and PhD in 1895. Influenced by history and philosophy, he devoted most of his life's work to studying Black Americans from a sociological point of view.  His doctoral thesis was titled, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870," published in 1896. Du Bois was then invited to conduct a study of the Seventh Ward in Philadelphia, which produced The Philadelphia Negro  in 1899.  During his time there, he also delivered an address, "The Study of the Negro Problem."  He was advancing the purpose and methods for scholarly examination of the condition of black people, and he was passionate about the conservation of the African American culture and identity. Mo...

  Physics Awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for "experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science." Chemistry Awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morton Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry." First, Sharpless coined the concept for click chemistry, where reactions occur quickly and unwanted by-products are avoided.  Then Meldal found the chemical reaction for mapping DNA. Next, Bertozzi applied this to living organisms, to track biomolecules on the surface of cells. Physiology or Medicine Awarded to Svante Paabo, "for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution." Paabo discovered a previously unknown hominin, Denisova.  He determined that gene transfer occurred to homo sapiens  following the migration out of Africa 70,000 years ago, and his work gave rise to a new...

  These came out earlier this month, but I got distracted by other things going on, so we'll just recap them now. Physics Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann - "for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming." Georgio Parisi - "for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales." Our Understanding of Complex Physical Systems Chemistry Benjamin List and David MacMillan - "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis." This is a precise new tool for molecular construction and will have an impact on pharmaceutical research, making chemistry greener. Enamine and iminium ion–mediated organocatalysis   Physiology/Medicine David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian - "for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch." They were able to explain the molecular basis for sensing heat, cold, and mechanical force. Di...

 One of the most celebrated American authors of the 20th century, Ray Bradbury worked in fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. I mentioned that I picked up a book of short stories but couldn't find a source online.  Well, I found a different collection for us. The Illustrated Man  carries a theme of "the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people."  It was nominated for an International Fantasy Award in 1952. With it being  Star Trek Day , I thought we might start with "The Rocket Man." It begins on page 63. Read-Along (Jump to 50 second mark to skip the intro, or click off to YouTube site) Be sure to let us know what you thought of the story! Happy Reading!

  March 25 marks the downfall of Sauron, and so we celebrate. I haven't actually read The Lord of the Rings  but I have The Fellowship of the Ring  on my bookshelf, and I have read The Hobbit . And I watched the movies, of course.   I was so in awe of Galadriel... Galadriel's Song I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew: Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew. Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea, And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree. Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone, In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion. There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years, While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears. O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day; The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away. O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor. But i...

 The Nobel Prizes have been awarded in all but Economics at this point, so let's go over the winners. Physics One half awarded to Roger Penrose "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity," with the other half jointly awarded to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy." Read More Chemistry Awarded to Emmanuelle Carpenter and Jennifer Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing," known as the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Read More Physiology or Medicine Awarded to Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles Rice "for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus."  Highly sensitive blood tests are now available and have essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world. Read More Literature Awarded to American poet Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with a...

PEACE Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali "In the wake of the peace process with Eritrea, [he] has engaged in other peace and reconciliation processes in East and Northeast Africa." LITERATURE Peter Handke "For an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and specificity of human experience." Also, because the 2018 announcement was cancelled due to allegations within the Swedish Academy, Olga Tokarczuk was awarded this year. "For a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life." CHEMISTRY John B. Goodenough M. Stanley Whittingham Akira Yoshino "For the development of lithium-ion batteries." PHYSICS James Peebles "For theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology." Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz "For the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star." PHYSIOLOGY ...

Chuck Palahniuk Born 02/21/1962 in Burbank, WA. Palahniuk is a Ukranian name, and is pronounced as a combination of his paternal grandparents' first names - Paula and Nick. After high school he joined The Cacophony Society, which is said to be the inspiration for Project Mayhem in Fight Club.    He wrote his first fictional story in his 30's, Negative Reinforcement, which was released in 1990 in the journal, Modern Short Stories. Chuck then wrote If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Right Now  but it was rejected and never printed.  He was told he was writing too dark.  He wrote Manifesto  (which would later become Invisible Monsters ) but was again rejected. So much like a theme in Fight Club , Chuck turned his back on the mainstream, and he wrote his biggest work to date. After success of the book and the movie, Chuck was given free reign, and has written/released a book pretty much every year since. I've just finished I...