News Feeds

I think the site below was suggested to me by Facebook, but at any rate one can subscribe for free. It’s called 1000 Libraries Magazine, and it specializes in news about books, which of course interests me.  Here, for example, is one of their latest articles whose title was catnip for me (click to read; you may have to give them your email and subscribe):

Now of course everybody knows at least one of these: the Bible. But can you guess the others? Some are obvious when you think about it, but others are not. I’ll list the top ten giving the number of copies estimated to have been sold. Text from the site is indented. I’ll also tell you if I’ve read them (total read: 8/10).

1.)  The Bible. 5 billion copies sold. 

Sitting firmly at the top, and likely forever unchallenged, is The Bible. With an estimated 5 billion copies sold, it’s the most distributed and translated book in human history.

What makes this even more remarkable is how it spread. Long before modern publishing, social media, or mass literacy. The Bible has been translated into over 3,000 languages, carried across continents by missionaries, scholars, and believers, and printed continuously for centuries.

I read this when I was writing Faith Versus Fact. It was a tedious exercise, and assertions that it’s a great work of literature are bogus. Parts of it are good, yes, but I always say that if there was only one copy of the book, sitting in a dusty “reduced price” bin somewhere, critics would claim it is boring—which it is.  Try reading how the Ark was constructed near the beginning!  It is considered a great work of literature only because it was influential, not because it was good. However, the King James translators did do a good job on the translation.

2.) The Little Red Book. 1.1 billion copies sold. 

This one surprises many people. Officially titled Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, The Little Red Book reached 1.1 billion copies sold, largely during China’s Cultural Revolution.

It wasn’t sold in the traditional sense. It was distributed, required reading, and a political tool. At one point, owning a copy wasn’t optional; it was a social expectation.

I haven’t read it.

3.) The Qur’an.  800 million copies sold. 

As the central religious text of Islam, the Quran has sold an estimated 800 million copies worldwide.

Muslims believe it to be the literal word of God, revealed in Arabic, which is why translations are often considered interpretations rather than replacements. Like the Bible, it’s recited, memorized, studied, and revered, not just read once and shelved.

Yes, I read it, also when writing Faith Versus Fact. It’s not only boring like the Bible, but filled with more animosity, bellicosity, and hatred than you can imagine. I was surprised that so few copies were sold: there are nearly as many Muslims as there are Christians on the planet, but their sacred book has sold less than 20% as much as the Bible.

4.) The Bhagavad Gita. 503 million copies sold. 

Part philosophy, part spiritual guide, part epic dialogue, The Bhagavad Gita has sold over 503 million copies.

Embedded within the Indian epic Mahabharata, this relatively short text explores duty, morality, devotion, and the nature of life itself. It has inspired thinkers from Mahatma Gandhi to modern self-help writers.

Yes, I read this, but simply because it was touted as a work of philosophy and because it had a big influence on India, a country I love. I thought it was definitely worth reading. I have not read the entire Mahabarata.

Robert Oppenheimer certainly read at least the Bhagavad Gita (and in the original Sanskrit!), for he gave a famous quote from it when the atomic bomb was successfully tested in New Mexico. Here’s what he said to NBC in 1965:

“I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu [a principal Hindu deity] is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I have become death, the destroyer of the worlds’. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

5.) Don Quixote. 5oo million copies sold.

Often called the first modern novel, Don Quixote has galloped its way to 500 million copies sold since its publication in 1605.

Written by Miguel de Cervantes, this satirical tale of a delusional knight tilting at windmills is hilarious, tragic, and surprisingly modern. It pokes fun at idealism while also celebrating imagination, a tricky balance Cervantes somehow nailed, even way back then.

Yep, I’ve read it, and found it good but not great. My bad.

6.) A Tale of Two Cities. 200 million copies sold. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” and apparently, it was also one of the most read. Set during the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million copies, making it Charles Dickens’ bestselling novel.

Yes, I read it, but think there are better works by Dickens, like Bleak House or David Copperfield.

7.) The Little Prince.  200 million copies sold. 

The Little Prince has sold 200 million copies and remains one of the most translated works ever written. On the surface, it’s a children’s story. Underneath, it’s a poetic meditation on love, loneliness, and what really matters.

It’s the kind of book people reread at different stages of life, and somehow find something new each time.

Yes, I read it—twice, once when younger and once when I was over 40.  I didn’t find much new the second time, and thought it was sappy. Sue me.

8.) The Book of Mormon. 190 million copies sold.

With 190 million copies sold, The Book of Mormon stands as another major religious text with global reach.

Published in 1830, it forms the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its distribution has been driven largely by missionary efforts, making it one of the most actively shared books in modern history.

Yep, I read it, again while writing Faith Versus Fact. It’s a straight ripoff of the Bible, confected not by God but by Joseph Smith, who apparently loved the phrase, “And so it came to pass.” The only part worth reading are the two “testimonies” at the beginning, with 11 people swearing that they actually saw the golden plates. They were all lying. Here’s the second testimony (you can see the whole book here).  Given the fraudlent way the book came to be, I always question the credibility of Mormons who think it’s true.

9.) The Lord of the Rings. 155 million copies sold.

One epic fantasy, three volumes, and 155 million copies sold.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth saga didn’t just entertain readers; it redefined fantasy as a genre. Elves, hobbits, detailed world-building, invented languages… all roads lead back to The Lord of the Rings.

Of course I’ve read it—who hasn’t?  I watched part of one of the movies, and was not engaged, since I had the scenery and the characters in my mind from reading the book, and the movie didn’t match, though Gollum was good.  The Hobbit is also an essential part of the Tolkien experience. You have to admire Tolkien for creating an entire fantasy world, complete with its own language—all while he was a professor.

10.) The Alchemist. 150 million copies sold.

Rounding out the list is The Alchemist, with 150 million copies sold. It stands as proof that modern books can still join legendary company.

Paulo Coelho’s spiritual fable about following your dreams resonates across cultures and ages. It’s short, simple, and endlessly quotable, a book people gift, recommend, and return to when they’re feeling lost.

This, along with The Little Red Book, is one of the two out of ten that I haven’t read. In fact, I haven’t even heard of it until now, though it was published in 1988, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here’s part of what I read:

The Alchemist (Portuguese: O Alquimista) is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho which was first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, it became a widely translated international bestseller. The story follows Santiago, a shepherd boy, in his journey across North Africa to the Egyptian pyramids after he dreams of finding treasure there. It has since been translated into more than 65 languages and has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.  In 2009, Paulo Coelho was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s most translated living author.

. . . The book’s main theme is about finding one’s destiny, although according to The New York Times, The Alchemist is “more self-help than literature”. The advice given to Santiago that “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true” is the core of the novel’s thinking. Coelho originally wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks, explaining later that he was able to work at this pace because the story was “already written in [his] soul.”

The NYT take, archived, is here. where Will Smith, who likes the book, calls it “real metaphysical, esoteric nonsense.”  I don’t think I’ll be reading it: life is too short. But if you have read it, weigh in below. The author must be bloody rich!

I’ve recently finished three books, all recommended by my erstwhile editor at Viking Penguin, who knows her books. I enjoyed them all, and I’m reading another book now in preparation for travel (the last below):

We Don’t Know Ourselves:  A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958, published in 2021 Fintan O’Toole. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be engrossed by a history of modern Ireland, but this book did the job. O’Toole, a respected Irish journalist and drama critic, decided to recount the modern history of Ireland from the year he was born up to the time of publication, with each chapter encompassing a period of time.  As I said, I really liked the book and learned a ton, especially about the entangled and convoluted history of the Catholic Church and Irish politics during this period.  Even in O’Toole’s youth and young manhood, the Church was enslaving children and unwed pregnant mothers, engaging in financial misdealings with the government, and oppressing the Irish (condoms were legalized only for married people in 1979, and for the unmarried in 1985; while abortions were illegal until just seven years ago).  That the Irish came through all this shows their resilience.

Empire of the Sun, published in 1984 novel by the English writer J. G. Ballard. This is a “fictionalized biography” based on Ballard’s experiences as a youth in China when he was separated from his parents and interred in a Japanese prison camp near Shanghai for some years.  The resourcefulness of Ballard, insofar as his depiction is true, is amazing, and the book engrossing. I gather that it was turned into a very successful 1987 film with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard and directed by Stephen Spielberg. You can’t do better than that pair. I must see the movie. However, I found I have a bit of a problem with biography turned into fiction, as I get distracted trying to separate truth from imagination.  I should just let that endeavor go, but it somehow interrupts my reading.

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, published in 1982. Ondaatje wrote the Booker-Prize-winning novel The English Patient, while Running in the Family is a somewhat fictionalized memoir of his youth in Sri Lanka and of two subsequent visits he made there as an adult. It seems to be more truthful than the two books above in terms of recounting what happened, and the characters are surely somewhat accurate, though bizarre. It suffers a bit in talking about only the rich, English-associated people of the country, so one doesn’t learn anything about the Sri Lankans (then “Sinhalese”) themselves. But as a portrait of upper-class “colonialist” life in the country it is colorful and absorbing.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (1994).  I am visiting Savannah in mid-April with some old friends, and was told to read this book as preparation. It’s another “nonfiction novel,” about which Wikipedia says this:

The book’s plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a “non-fiction novel.”

The characters are unbelievably colorful and eccentric, but they were apparently like that in real life. So far I’ve read about 120 pages and haven’t gotten into the main plot, but already the setting has made me eager to go to a renowned and beautiful city that I’ve never visited.

This of course is also a prompt for readers to let us know what they’ve read lately, and whether they liked it (I get a lot of suggestions from such comments). Your turn.

DNA robots are emerging as tiny programmable machines that could one day deliver drugs, hunt viruses, and build molecular-scale devices. By borrowing ideas from traditional robotics and combining them with DNA folding techniques, scientists are creating structures that can move and act with precision. These robots can be guided using chemical reactions or external signals like light and magnetic fields.

If you thought the current crop of satellite megaconstellations was bad, you’re going to be horribly disappointed by new proposals from both SpaceX and a company called Reflect Orbital. Their combined plans would fundamentally alter the night sky as we know it, and the global astronomical community is sounding the alarm - most notably letters from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) strongly opposing the plan, which currently sits with America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval.

NASA’s Artemis II mission will be the first time humans have been around the moon in half a century, and its next launch window opens on 1 April

The science suggests that olive oil can help us fight cognitive decline and even Alzheimer’s. Columnist Helen Thomson finds that only works if we choose the right kind

The science suggests that olive oil can help us fight cognitive decline and even Alzheimer’s. Columnist Helen Thomson finds that only works if we choose the right kind

The discovery of a Martian sarcophagus in Colorado in 1864: An oddball story, or consistent with the lore of the day?

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A new shape-shifting material can change both its texture and color in seconds, inspired by the camouflage abilities of octopuses. By precisely controlling how a polymer swells with water, researchers can create detailed, reversible patterns at the nanoscale. The material can even mimic realistic surfaces and dynamically adjust how it reflects light. In the future, AI could allow it to automatically blend into its surroundings.

Scientists have taken lasers beyond light and into the realm of sound, creating a breakthrough “phonon laser” that manipulates tiny vibrations at the quantum level. By dramatically reducing noise in these systems, researchers can now measure motion and forces with unprecedented precision. This advance could unlock new ways to study gravity, probe quantum physics, and even revolutionize navigation with ultra-accurate, satellite-free systems.

Perovskite crystals can dramatically and reversibly change shape when hit with light, a behavior not seen in conventional semiconductors. This effect, called photostriction, can be finely tuned depending on the light’s intensity and color. Researchers say these materials act more like adjustable systems than simple switches. The finding could lead to a new generation of light-powered sensors and devices.

Perovskite crystals can dramatically and reversibly change shape when hit with light, a behavior not seen in conventional semiconductors. This effect, called photostriction, can be finely tuned depending on the light’s intensity and color. Researchers say these materials act more like adjustable systems than simple switches. The finding could lead to a new generation of light-powered sensors and devices.

It's not often that astronomers can observe huge changes in a galaxy's brightness over the course of a few years. Most galaxies change in brightness (and other characteristics) over millions or billions of years. So, when images of the 10-billion-light-year distant galaxy J0218-0036 showed that it dimmed down by a twentieth of its previous brightness in just 20 years, observers were surprised. What could cause it to do that? That's not "normal" for AGN.

The ice giant Uranus is one of the most fascinating objects in the solar system, with its sideways rotation, intricate ring system, and unique family of moons. However, it is also one of the least explored objects in the solar system, owing to its extreme distance from the Sun. With NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft remaining as the only spacecraft to visit Uranus, scientists continue to design and envision mission concepts for returning to explore Uranus and its icy secrets.

Less than two days from now, NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled to lift off for its historic 10-day journey around the Moon, marking the first time humans have ventured beyond Low Earth Orbit for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, and possibly even set new distance records for traveling beyond Earth. However, Artemis II is only scheduled as a flyby mission and will not be landing humans on the lunar surface, with this endeavor being scheduled for later missions.

Scientists at the University of Waterloo have uncovered a bold new way to explain how the universe began—one that could reshape our understanding of the Big Bang. Instead of relying on patched-together theories, their approach shows that the universe’s explosive early growth may arise naturally from a deeper framework called quantum gravity.

Scientists at the University of Waterloo have uncovered a bold new way to explain how the universe began—one that could reshape our understanding of the Big Bang. Instead of relying on patched-together theories, their approach shows that the universe’s explosive early growth may arise naturally from a deeper framework called quantum gravity.

Astronomers studying the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Pictor II have found an extremely chemically peculiar star that contains traces of elements created by the first stars in the Universe. It's called PicII-503, a "second-generation star" that is one of the most chemically primitive stars ever found.

This collection of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes contains regions where stars are forming. Often nicknamed “stellar nurseries,” they are cosmic gardens from which stars – not plants – emerge from the interstellar soil of gas and dust.

Even if the conflict in the Middle East ends today, higher fuel, fertiliser and pesticide prices will lead to a food shock in the coming months. There is no easy way out, but accelerating the net-zero transition will help prevent future shocks

Alan Lightman a physicist best known for his writing about science, most famously his 1992 novel Einstein’s Dreams. At present he’s a “professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT.”

Lightman’s recent article in The Atlantic (click headline below or find article archived for frere here), while seeming to buy into the magazine’s recent penchant for osculating religion, really is not.  It seems to mostly express a kind of spiritual wonder.  But it’s confusing for two reasons.

First, he denies materialism, but latter accepts it (see below).

Second he deals with two forms of dualism: the mind/body dualism dealt with by Descartes, but also a dualism caused by recent advances in medical technology, in which part of your body is not made of tissue (examples are artificial hearts and mind/electrode interfaces) making people part human, part machine.

After reading the piece, I wasn’t sure what the point was except to mirror Lightman’s wonder at the world and his unanswered questions.

It began when Lightman had a colonoscopy, which got  him wondering what was going on inside himself; as he said, “I felt like a trespasser in my own body.” And that gets him into the first form of dualism.  All bolding henceforth is mine:

Modern neuroscience has largely overthrown the classical view that the mind and the body are fundamentally different substances, and it has shown that all of our thoughts and mental experiences are rooted in the material brain. But even granting that scientific view, there remains a profound disconnect between our conscious self-awareness—rooted in the three pounds of gooey stuff in our skulls—and the rest of our body.

And here’s the confusing bit, where he denies materialism: he simply has to be more than just the substance of his body. Bolding is mine:

After that unsettling medical adventure, I began mulling over why I was so disturbed to see the insides of my body. A number of issues come to mind. For starters, the experience struck me as a vivid demonstration of my materiality. Even though I am a scientist and have a materialist view of the world, I still harbor the belief that I am more than just a jumble of tissues and nerves. The experience of consciousness and life is so sublime that it is hard to imagine it all arising from mere atoms and molecules. 

This seems like a case of cognitive dissonance, but it’s not clear whether he really believes what’s in bold as opposed to “harboring” that belief. Yes, we don’t know how consciousness works, but what else is there to create it except the stuff of our bodies and brains? For other people, like Ross Douthat, a failure to understand is by default evidence for god, but nobody who knows the history of science would think that.

Lightman then muses for a while about our failure to fully understand our own bodies, but what is a source of puzzlement to him is a challenge to scientists. We have never made progress in understanding nature by assuming that naturalism is wrong, and so the program to understand consciousness must begin with a naturalistic program—until we find an exception to naturalism!

But later on, Lightman says that he’s really a materialist:

I must again confess that I am a materialist. I respect the belief in an immortal soul. I respect the belief in a nonphysical mind. But, despite my predilection for some transcendent element, I do not share those beliefs. Still, I am baffled by the disconnect I feel between body and mind. I look down at my bare feet and command my toes to wiggle. And they wiggle. But “I” am looking down at them from above. My toes are things that I gaze at from some distance. But what distance? The distance from the camera of my eyes? The distance from my conscious mind, which has these thoughts? And my toes are visible. The inside of my body is even more distant.

Once again his source of wonder is his victimization by an illusion, one described so clearly by Dan Dennett, that there is an “Alan Lightman” sitting somewhere in his brain, a little homunculus that looks down on his toes. Again, he’s baffled, while a biologist would see a challenge. My own view, and I’m no expert, is that the “hard problem of consciousness” will simply devolve to a problem of what brain connections are necessary for the sensation consciousness, and then we’ll have to say, “And that is all we know.”

Finally, having confessed his bafflement, Lightman goes on to describe some medical advances that truly are amazing, but, like the one below, must surely have a naturalistic explanation:

In 2013, scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California implanted two computer chips in the brain of Erik Sorto, then 32, who was paralyzed from the neck down from a gunshot wound. The output from the chips is connected to a computer, which interprets the patterns of their electrical activity; the computer, in turn, is connected to a robot arm. When Sorto is thirsty and merely thinks about reaching for a cup of water, the computer chips in his brain sense his desire and relay that thought to the computer, and the robot arm grabs a cup of water and brings it to his lips. When I interviewed Sorto in November 2021 and asked him what it felt like to have this machine in his body, he said that he felt mostly human but also part cyborg.

Now that is amazing, especially because, as far as I know, the way it works was not designed from first principles, although some knowledge of neuroscience was surely required (where do you put the chips?). But this surely has a naturalistic explanation, unless you think that god did it or some fundamental principles of how neurons and muscles work has eluded us.

And that’s pretty much it.  I may have failed to be impressed simply because I’m jaded, and as a scientist I’m used to unsolved problems that to other conjure up spiritual or even non-naturalistic explanations. But still, I wonder why The Atlantic published this.