Really interesting OpenBook titled "Engaging with Everyday Sounds"

I have had a tab open in my browser for several months to a book called Engaging with Everyday Sounds.  I'm sure that I discovered this book through one of the podcasts that I subscribe to related to acoustics, but I have since forgotten which podcast it was. 

This book is interesting not only due to the content but also because it is an OpenBook and therefore free to read online. Perhaps what is most unique about this book is that embedded within are sound recordings related to the chapter material.

This is neat work, and I would like to read it more closely rather than just the light skimming that I do every time I return to the tab.

Something I'm reading intersected with stuff I"m listening to

Around the end of the year, I listened to this episode of 99% Invisible which featured a story about how emergency vehicle sirens use higher sound levels than they historically did. The podcast mentioned the story was a part of the book "Golden" about the theme of silence in the world today. That sounded interesting, so I purchased the ebook to read.

I've been reading the book and enjoying it. The book is less about the acoustics of silence and more about the psychological aspects of searching for silence (or peace) in a loud and chaotic world. Still, it has been a worthwhile read so far.

I was a bit surprised to find an episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz also titled "Golden," which was also based on the book.  It, too, was a really great episode - I recommend checking it out.

I'll admit up front that I'm over three months past when most people do a year-end review. But it's spring break for me, and I almost feel like I have time to think about things like this for a few seconds. 

I like to read books. I'm certainly not the fastest reader out there, nor do I end up reading a huge amount of books each year, but usually, I'm able to finish at least 25 books a year. Last year, I only read 17 books.

As the end of the year approached, I looked back at the books I had picked and noticed that the lengths of books I was reading were trending upward. In 2020, the books I read had an average length of 314 pages. In 2021 it was 337 pages. Last year it was 342 pages. 

The longest book I read was "Sundown Towns" by James Loewen. Not only was that book long, it was also a slow read for me. I can't exactly explain it - the book never seemed to drag, but yet it was the type of book that took more deliberate reading.

Another long book was "I Alone Can Fix It" by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. This was about the last year of the Trump presidency. I try not to read too many contemporary political books, but in 2021 I had read a book about the first three years of the Trump administration, so I figured the Leonnig and Rucker book would be a good way to finish the story of what happened in the White House.  In retrospect, I'm a bit ambivalent about my decision to read both of those books. I think they were fine choices for what they were, but I'm not sure how much they will stick with me long term.

The last specific example of a long book I read was "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson. Out of the 17 books I finished in 2022, this was the book with the highest average rating on Goodreads. I enjoyed this book, although there were some chapters in the middle which I felt dragged a bit. Wilkerson wrote about an event that happened to her at an unnamed business in Chicago towards the start of the book. I am positive that I had either heard her tell that story on a podcast or in a radio interview well before her book was published, but I couldn't find where I had heard it before. I definitely recommend this book even though it was a bit long and had a few slow parts to it. There is a reason it was so highly rated by many people.

I think another reason I ended up finishing fewer books than I wanted was that I am mostly reading books that I check out from the library as ebooks. Often times, I don't finish a book before it is due and then there is a hold on the book while others read it. I end up with a number of books-in-progress that I'm always planning to come back to after finishing the library books. 

So far this year, I've only finished three books. I'm probably already behind in my goal for finishing 25 books this year. That's okay, though. I still like reading whatever I can.

Weekend book review: The Radioactive Boy Scout

One of the first magazine articles I ever remember reading on the internet was the story of a teenager who wanted to build a nuclear reactor at his home. This was probably in 1998, during the thick of my time in college majoring in physics.  That time, as I recall, was before it was common to have magazine articles online. But Harpers Magazine was forward thinking, and the article was linked to from several nerdy websites that I read daily back then.

I learned about the concept of a breeder reactor, I learned that smoke detectors often used radioactive sources for their operation, and I learned that I wanted to know more about this story.  I was happy to hear that the author of the book had written a full-length book on the topic.

It took me awhile, but I finally got around to reading the book "The Radioactive Boy Scout" a few years ago.  I was not disappointed in the fleshing out of the story, although I was also not surprised that in parts of the book it felt like it was being padded to fill space.

The book was definitely a quick read, and it was worth going back to after years of first hearing the story. 


The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews

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Cubicle Warfare: 101 Office Traps and Pranks by John Austin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like most books that are a list of pranks and practical jokes, this is a really quick read. While it had a few offensive (and possibly illegal?) suggested practical jokes, most of them were good natured and harmless office stunts. I got a few good laughs from some of the suggested pranks. It is a better book than some of the other similar books on pranks, but overall I was a bit disappointed with it.