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GEONius.com
29-Jan-2016
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The following are mini-reviews of books I read in 2013.
Also see the full index of books I've read.


  [Book cover]

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal

by Jared Diamond (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything

by David Bellos (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand

by Darrell Mullis and Judith Orloff

...

The authors begin the final chapter by summarizing what they've covered:

So far in this book, we've learned about the three financial statements—the Balance Sheet, the Income Statement, and the Cash Statement. We've learned how each is structured, its purpose and relationships to the other two. We've also learned how to separate Cost of Goods or Cost of Services from Expenses. We learned the Accrual versus Cash Method of accounting, service company accounting, capitalizing versus expensing, depreciation, and Cash versus Earnings.

  [Book cover]

The Everything Accounting Book

by Michele Cagan

...

Also see the on-line copy of the book.

  [Book cover]

Financial Literacy for Managers: Finance and Accounting for Better Decision-Making

by Richard A. Lambert

...

  [Book cover]

Language and Computers

by Markus Dickinson, Chris Brew, and Detmar Meurers

...

Also see Language and Computers Companion Website.

  [Book cover]

Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond

by Paul Halpern (Wikipedia)

...

Also see the book's website, Edge of the Universe.

  [Book cover]

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines

by Michael E. Mann

...

Also see the book's website.

  [Book cover]

Cranford

by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1851)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Cranford

  [Book cover]

Cousin Phillis

by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1864)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Cousin Phillis

  [Book cover]

Treasure of Kings

by Charles Gilson (1878-1943) (Science Fiction Encyclopedia) (pub. 1922?)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Treasure of Kings

  [Book cover]

The Harbor Master

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts (1877-1953) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1913)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: The Harbor Master

  [Book cover]

The Moorland Cottage

by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1850)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: The Moorland Cottage

  [Book cover]

How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

by Thomas Gilovich (Wikipedia)

...

  [Iron Mill]

Life in the Iron-Mills

by Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1861)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Life in the Iron-Mills

  [Book cover]

A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet and Universe

by Gino Segrè

...

  [Book cover]

Lord Jim

by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1900)

(I'm writing this in 2016, so please forgive me for any details I get wrong.) Jim grew up reading swashbuckling adventures and dreaming of being a swashbuckling adventurer. Life takes a different turn and he ends up as the first mate on a tramp steamer, the Patna. The Patna is carrying eight hundred pilgrims on the Hajj. In the middle of the night, with the ship's deck covered with sleeping pilgrims, the ship begins to sink. The few white crew members and Jim desert the ship in a small lifeboat, leaving the pilgrims and several Malaysian crew members to their fate.

The white crew members were eventually picked up and returned to land, at which time they learned that the Patna didn't sink and had been towed into port with no passengers lost. The names of the men would forever after be associated with their cowardice. Jim bumped around the world, trying to live down his disgrace, and finally ended up on a remote South Seas country, Patusan, where the natives treated him as almost a God and gave him his name, "Lord Jim". (According to Wikipedia, Patusan is a fictional country possibly located on Borneo, although other theories have been proposed.)

Project Gutenberg eBook: Lord Jim

  [Book cover]

Kidnapped

by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1886)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Kidnapped

  [Book cover]

Under the Andes

by Rex Stout (1886-1975) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1914)

As I read this story, I realized I'd read it before and I'm sure it was after I began keeping track of the books I've read. Somehow, however, I didn't note this one down. Oh, well. After the arrival of the Spanish, some Incas went underground and evolved into not-quite-human creatures adapted to the darkness. Some Westerners exploring underground are captured by the Incas and struggle to escape.

Project Gutenberg eBook: Under the Andes

  [Illustration]

Vanity Fair

by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1848)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Vanity Fair

  [Book cover]

Dice World: Science and Life in a Random Universe

by Brian Clegg

...

  [Illustration]

History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

by Henry Fielding (1707-1754) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1749)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

  [Book cover]

Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Updated with a New Preface

by Paul Farmer

...

Also see Partners In Health.

  [Book cover]

The Universe in the Rearview Mirror: How Hidden Symmetries Shape Reality

by Dave Goldberg

...

Also see Dr. Goldberg's Ask a Physicist column at io9.

  [Book cover]

The Forsyste Saga

by John Galsworthy (1867-1933) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1906-1921)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: The Forsyte Saga

  [Book cover]

The Chemical Cosmos: A Guided Tour

by Steve Miller

...

Also see Triatomic hydrogen (Wikipedia), whose cation, H3+, is "the most prevalent molecular ion in interstellar space" and, not coincidentally, the "guide" for Dr. Miller's tour.

  [Title page]

Amalia: A Romance of the Argentine

by José Mármol (1818-1871) (Wikipedia), translated by Mary J. Serrano (pub. 1844, original Spanish)

... Juan Manuel de Rosas ...

Internet Archive eBook: Amalia: A Romance of the Argentine

  [Book cover]

The Devil-Tree of El Dorado

by Frank Aubrey (1847-1927) (Science Fiction Encyclopedia) (pub. 1897)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: The Devil-Tree of El Dorado

  [Book cover]

Faithful Margaret

by Annie Ashmore (pseudonym for Mrs. J. M. Simpson) (pub. 1877)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Faithful Margaret

  [Illustration]

Our Mutual Friend

by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1865)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Our Mutual Friend

  [Book cover]

Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon

by John Hemming (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing

by Lawrence M. Krauss (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

The Odd Women

by George Gissing (1857-1903) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1893)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: The Odd Women

  [Book cover]

Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang

by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok

...

  [Book cover]

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) (Wikipedia) (pub. 1904)

...

Project Gutenberg eBook: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

  [Book cover]

Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather

by Marq de Villiers (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life

by Martin Meredith (Wikipedia)

...

  [Book cover]

The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes

by Scott Wallace

...

  [Book cover]

The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet

by Heidi Cullen (Wikipedia)

...


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