It’s the last day of 2024! How about that? We made it!
So I read the September/October 2024 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact . I know that I should probably stop bringing up this magazine here because the stories aren’t available for free, but I am what I am. I must mention Adam-Troy Castro‘s “Minnie and Earl Have a Kitten.” This is the fourth (and final?) “Minnie and Earl” story to appear in the magazine. The first appeared in, I guess, the late 1990s. If you want to experience a warm hug of a science fiction series, you can find an ebook of the first three stories on Amazon or on Hoopla. They concern a friendly old couple who are discovered, by early Earth astronauts, to be living on the moon. How they got there isn’t immediately clear.
I also read the November 30, 2023 issue of the London Review of Books. A few stories captured my attention:
- Searching for the Bee, about a very old book called The Wonders of Creatures and the Marvels of Creation, which was apparently one of the most widely read books of the 13th century. I won’t try to describe the peculiar contents of the book here. Check out the article if you want to learn more.
- A National Evil, which is about how everyone in Switzerland used to have big goiters. The history this article tells is so strange. Apparently for many decades Switzerland was known as a place of goiters, deafness and developmentally disabled children. Apparently this was all due to a lack of iodine in the diets of people there. Tourists would travel to the country just to see the goiters. I’m pretty sure this is the second article I’ve linked to on this topic since I began this column.
Finally, I read Nicholas Lemann’s new book “Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline and Return of Standardized Testing.” This slim volume is something of a followup to Lemann’s brilliant “The Big Test,” published about 25 years ago. It tells the story of (mostly) the SAT – how it came to become dominant, the impact it has had on American education, and why many schools have recently abandoned it. I actually penned a few words about the book a few days ago. Do check out that post.
That’s all for now! I will spend most of next month traveling, but I should find time for at least a short list of recommendations.