threemonkeys (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threemonkeys) wrote2006-05-05 04:58 pm
threemonkeys) wrote2006-05-05 04:58 pm
Play the ball not the man
Sometimes you get a book that looks normal in size. But when you open it, you find large fonts, large line spacing, large margins and blank pages between chapters, blank pages or advertising at the end and lots of other filler. Usually this type of cheat can be annoying, but not today as it was a relief to get things over and done with.
Electric Universe by David Bodanis is clearly not targeted at the likes of me. It is to science writing what Women's Day is to serious investigative journalism. It purports to be a history of electricity. What you actually get is a series of character profiles of an assorted bunch of people associated to some degree or another with he development of electricity from physics, engineering and biochemistry. Of course there needs to be discussion of the personalities involved in any science writing, but not when the science itself is relegated to a few very minor low level discussions. Of added insult is that the people chosen for greatest emphasis are not necessarily the most important to the history of electricity and many major contributors in the area are ignored completely (Tesla and Westinghouse for example). The people are chosen for their colourful characters so that they can be turned into saints or devils by Boudanis - there does not seem to be much middle room in the way they are treated.
Having said all that, I would say that Bodanis has considerable skill at what he does. He is very good at spinning a yarn and creating the type of overblown prose used in this book. It is very readable as long as you don't mind lots of adjectives.
Electric Universe by David Bodanis is clearly not targeted at the likes of me. It is to science writing what Women's Day is to serious investigative journalism. It purports to be a history of electricity. What you actually get is a series of character profiles of an assorted bunch of people associated to some degree or another with he development of electricity from physics, engineering and biochemistry. Of course there needs to be discussion of the personalities involved in any science writing, but not when the science itself is relegated to a few very minor low level discussions. Of added insult is that the people chosen for greatest emphasis are not necessarily the most important to the history of electricity and many major contributors in the area are ignored completely (Tesla and Westinghouse for example). The people are chosen for their colourful characters so that they can be turned into saints or devils by Boudanis - there does not seem to be much middle room in the way they are treated.
Having said all that, I would say that Bodanis has considerable skill at what he does. He is very good at spinning a yarn and creating the type of overblown prose used in this book. It is very readable as long as you don't mind lots of adjectives.