Proboscis Colossus
Finished Grendel. I have no idea how any studio, let alone Henson, will make a movie out of that. I mean, some things did happen, and Beowulf did show up in about the last 30 mins., but the vast majority of the book is just Grendel ruminating angrily about existence. Did not enjoy.
"God guides us on our journey, but careful with those feet." - David Lee Roth, of all people
The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bombby Sam Kean
Highly recommended! A fun, fascinating read. This is the story of the Allied mission in WWII, using an assemblage of unlikely spies, to learn how far the Nazis had advanced in development of an atomic bomb, and to prevent them from progressing any further. The book contains an unusual mix of atomic physics and espionage, amid the setting of WWII Europe. Some of the adventures described are hard to believe. One subject it makes me want to read more about is the early days of the OSS—their operations seem pretty outrageous. As shady and underhanded as many of the exploits of the CIA are—it was created in part to rein in the OSS and provide more oversight.
I’ve also enjoyed others by Kean—The Disappearing Spoon and The Icepick Surgeon—and he has a few more that are on my to-read list.
Dave
Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
by Zeke Faux
I haven't finished this yet, but it's already a strong recommendation. I never really understood cryptocurrency, but it turned out hardly anyone did. The crypto world was so wack, it's hard to know whether the key figures behind it were pure con artists or really believed their own hype. The author is a journalist; his investigation into crypto ended up taking him for a ride into some of the scams it enabled - involving mobile games, NFTs, and "pig-butchering" texts. One of the main players is of course Sam Bankman-Fried; I know how things turn out for him, but I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet.
All along the book reminded me of Michael Lewis' The Big Short - replace subprime mortgages with crypto. So I was amused when the author directly referenced that. And he saw Lewis at a crypto event, where he appeared to be fawning over Bankman-Fried and buying into the whole thing. Lewis also recently wrote a book more specifically about Bankman-Fried; I haven't read it, but I've seen criticism that it's overly sympathetic.