Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Long-Awaited Debut: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

If you only read one science-fiction mystery this year, make it The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. In this story, an imprisoned thief is forced to play mind-games with quantum copies of himself, until an unexpected jailbreak leads him to the opportunity of a lifetime. Kirkus, which gave this book a starred review, describes The Quantum Thief as "a sort of paranoid-conspiracy, hard sci-fi whodunit" that is "spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured, and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years." The European edition, released in 2010, also garnered praise on sfsite.com. The author, a Finnish resident of Scotland, has a PhD in physics and a day job as a mathematician, so the science underpinning the story is as real as modern knowledge can make it. Reserve this exciting debut today!

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Long-Awaited Debut: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

No comments:

Post a Comment