Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: Old King Author: Maxim Loskutoff  ISBN: 978-0-393-86819-7 Publisher: w.w. Norton  Type of book: 1976-1996, Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, effects of nature, Lincoln Montana, jobs, NEIGHBORS, animals, technology, finding self, opening up Alice's world, choices, psychopathy,  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: In this novel about the end of the frontier dream, a logger builds a cabin near a recluse named Ted Kaczynski. In the spring of America’s bicentennial, a man named Duane Oshun runs out of gas in Lincoln, Montana, a former mining boomtown. In this outlaw community, Duane joins a logging crew, falls for a waitress, and attempts to befriend his neighbor, a loner named Ted Kaczynski. Though the two men share a fascination with the Old King, an ancient Douglas fir anchoring the valley’s endangered old-growth forest, Kaczynski's violent grievances against modern society will shake the nation and place Duane in grave danger. Told in four parts s...

   Title of the book: the Catalyst; RNA and the quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets  Author: Thomas R. Cech  Publisher: w.w. Norton  Publishing Date: 2024 ISBN: 978-1-324-05068-1 Summary: A Nobel Prize–winning scientist reveals biology’s most transformative achievements in decades―a Double Helix for the dawning of the RNA age. Over the last half century, a quiet revolution has taken place. In a series of breathtaking discoveries, biochemist Thomas Cech and a diverse cast of brilliant scientists have revealed RNA at the center of biology’s greatest mysteries, from how life began to what makes us human to why we age. At last, The Catalyst pulls back the curtain to show how RNA―long sidelined as the passive servant of DNA―defines life, from its very origins to our future in the twenty-first century. Recounting his own paradigm-shifting discovery that RNA can catalyze biochemical reactions, as well as his work on the “fountain of youth” telomerase, Cech unfolds h...