The Second World War by Antony Beevor
A single volume covering the whole conflict in reasonable detail. Covered a few areas ie China that other volumes skip. Does the job. 3/5
Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention by Kathryn D. Sullivan
Mostly an astronaut memoir with some extra material on the Hubble development and launch. Some good anecdotes and insights into the work to make the Hubble serviceable. 3/5
The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
Memoir rather than self help. Okay read but not very actionable. 2/5
Space 2069: After Apollo: Back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond by David Whitehouse
A “future history” of Space travel for the next 50 years (to the 100th Anniversary of the moon landings). Plausible ideas and good science. 3/5
Second Best: The Amazing Untold Histories of the Greatest Runners-Up by Ben Pobjie
A series of amusing stories about people who didn’t come first. About 50% Australian examples. High jokes/minute with okay hit rate. 2/5
To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petroski
A very readable book on Engineering successes and failures and what can be learnt from them (and how things should be learnt). 3/5
My Scoring System
- 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
- 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
- 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
- 2/5 = Disappointing
- 1/5 = Did not like at all
