Burr

Aaron Burr has always been a sort of favorite of mine.  Not in the sense that he was a role model or anything like that; a man who is, by many accounts, a traitor and a sore loser doesn't seem suited to that sort of favoritism.  Instead, I liked him because he was a quirk of history, he managed to interact and work with many of the founding fathers of America, without ever being considered one.  It seems he was a skilled lawyer and politician but he burned the wrong bridges (and shot the wrong people) and ended up on the wrong side of history.

These were the things I was thinking when I saw Burr by Gore Vidal among my grandmother's books.  After a quick google which told me that it was the first of a 7 book series (as always if I can help it, I read the series in historical order rather than publication order (Burr is second in publication order)), I shelved it for some years until I was in the mood to read something longer.  When I finally hit that point, I was delighted at how good it was.  Gore Vidal was just a familiar name to me before I started this series but now he is an author I respect.

The book is historical fiction and follows Burr in the twilight of his life recounting adventures from his younger years.  As you might expect from the title, it generally puts him in a sympathetic light.  After reading the rest of the series, I've determined that Vidal is somewhat of a historical contrarian.  If history says someone is good, Vidal probably portrays them less kindly in his books and, to Burr's benefit, someone history frowns upon gets a more positive spin.  This makes for a particularly interesting read for someone like me who generally goes after the breadth of history rather than the depth of particular parts.

The book is highly enjoyable: the characters are engaging, and while the plot is mostly a frame story, it makes history interesting.  It is not the best book in the series (that honor probably goes to Lincoln or Empire) but it is in the top half of a set of seven good books.  Plus, it makes for the perfect gift for anyone who is annoying you by singing Hamilton lyrics too much.

Overall, I would give this book a 90%.

What If?

First let me start by saying that Randall Munroe's what if blog is one of the treasures of the internet. If you have never heard of it, he does back of the napkin calculations for generally silly questions. Some of my favorites include
1) How many BBs would it take to stop a speeding train: http://what-if.xkcd.com/18/
2) How to build a jetpack out of downward firing machine guns: http://what-if.xkcd.com/21/
3) Changing the color of the moon with laser pointers (which contains the phrase

Unfortunately, the laser energy flow would turn the atmosphere to plasma, instantly igniting the Earth’s surface and killing us all.

But let’s assume that the lasers somehow pass through the atmosphere without interacting.

Under those circumstances, it turns out Earth still catches fire. 

): http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

Anyway, this book is a collection of his posts and some original content.  It is interesting when things people are giving away for the free on the internet (webcomics, blogs, and the like) transition into money making in the physical world.  It is interesting to see what twists the author puts on their product to make it worth buying rather than reading for free on the internet.  In this case, it is some new questions and answers.  However, honestly they are (in my opinion, duh) some of the worse ones of the book.  They are still good, but definitely not in my favorites.

If you want to know the real answer to questions like "How many BBs can stop a train?", this isn't the book for you. The math is generally back of the napkin style and many of the concepts are oversimplified to the point of being unrecognizable by an expert.  However, if you want to think about interesting questions with reasonable simulacra of the answers, this is exactly the book for you. The author has a humorous tone and is clearly having fun researching and writing the answers.  As such, the book is best suited to someone who wants to have fun reading it (and honestly, it is hard not to),

While this is a great concept and a fun book, if you are even moderately internet savvy, you can get 90% of the enjoyment from this book simply by reading the blog.

Overall, I would give this a 90%.