Easter in Ordinary

Throughout this year, I have been following Mark Zuckerberg's reading list , but my reading also has been influenced by Bill Gates (or his 2014 list ) and, more recently, President Obama. In addition to Ta-Nahesi Coates' Between the World and Me , I also decided to read Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History from President Obama's summer reading list . One reads a book with the term "extinction" in its title at one's own peril. Kolbert's work multiples that peril. Arranged in thirteen chapters, each with its own species that has gone extinct, Kolbert weaves a tale of life's precarity in earth's history. Photo credit: Barry Goldstein Educated in in literature as an undergraduate at Yale and a Fulbright fellowship that took her to Germany, Kolbert has been a professional journalist and author. Not unlike Matt Ridley's Genome , Kolbert deftly mixes science and history with linguistic grace. Along with contemp...

Mature, public conversation about issues that matter is foundational for democratic society. I am delighted that Mark Zuckerberg's " A Year of Books " offers such an opportunity. To contribute to that dialog, I will offer commentary on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. It was Bill Gates who initially exposed me to the work of Vaclav Smil. In Gates' recommendations for " Beach Reading (and More) ," Microsoft's founder suggested Smil's latest work while also noting his long affection for Smil's writing in his review of the book: I can’t think of anyone better equipped to present a clear-eyed analysis of this subject than Vaclav Smil. I have written several times before about how much I admire Smil’s work. When he tackles a subject, he doesn’t look at just one piece of it. He examines every angle. Even if I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, I always learn a lot from reading him. When Mark Zuckerberg made Smil's Energy: ...