Mr. Burke's Reading List

Realm of Measure From the yardstick to the Theory of Relativity, by Isaac Asimov, 1960 Removed from circulation from my school library and regulated to the trash pile before I spotted the circa-1960 photo of Isaac Asimov on the back cover (looking younger than I've ever seen him before, so I surprised myself by recognizing him), serendipity brought Realm of Measure: From the yardstick to the Theory of Relativity into my possession. I'm happy that it did. Though billed as an exploration of mathematics, he veers off a bit into scientific measurements, but I'll still count this toward my goal of reading one interesting book on math each summer, and this one does it without spinning out of control with endless, overly-complicated and overly-ridiculous equations. Asimov goes into the history of measurements and how certain units came about and how the different units relate to one another. Not only did lengths like palms and feet have to be standardized from person to pe...

Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #1), by Laurell K. Hamilton, 1993 Before Buffy was slaying vampires on television, Anita Blake was executing them in a series of novels. Anita is an Animator, she has the ability to raise the dead, creating zombies who can, briefly, retain their memories and personalities. She also kills vampires, but there's a catch. Vampires have are people, too, you know. They have rights, and they can only be put down by court order. Otherwise, they stay and operate in their own districts of the city. Guilty Pleasures is just your typical vampire nightclub. It isn't hiding anything nefarious. Of course, it's not. As the story opens, Anita is being hired by a vampire whom she recently knew as a person. They want her to look into a series of unsanctioned vampire killings. She's not a private detective, but they think that she knows her stuff. Who better than someone who kills vampires to deal with another vampire killer. Oddly enou...