The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

A murder is committed in a small town in the Canadian wilderness of the 1800's and at least three different people come under suspicion. One of them, an eyewitness, takes off after the murderer without telling anyone what he is up to. He treks through the cold winter forest and two different groups take off after him. The trail leads to a Norwegian religious community and then on to an outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. It is sometimes hard to keep all the characters straight in this novel, but it is well written and, on the whole, a good read.

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich rose to the challenge of an exploring the lifestyle of America's low wage workers. She left her comfortable home in Florida became alternately a waitress, a housecleaner, and a Wal-Mart "associate." With each job she would hunt up an apartment she could afford on the low wages. This in itself was a challenge; but throw in the need for food and clothing and she realized how stressful living at that level really is. She makes the point that the people in these jobs are hard-working, generous with each other, and smart about stretching a dollar.

Quantum Enigma; Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner

Thank goodness for physicists who make the effort to communicate the implications of their research to the rest of us. Rosenblum and Kuttner teach a course called Quantum Enigma which is designed for liberal arts majors at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In it they brave the frontier between physics and philosophy where most physicists refuse to go. One of their colleagues told them that "Though what you're saying is correct, presenting this material to nonscientists is the intellectual equivalent of allowing children to play with loaded guns."

Simply put, the quantum enigma is that observation actually creates the physical reality observed. As one Nobel laureate put it: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness." This situation, in which the act of measurement or observation affects the outcome of an experiment, is referred to by physicists as "the measurement problem."

Quantum Enigma gives a great summary of the development of quantum theory and elucidates the controversy surrounding its various interpretations. Its conclusion is that the origin of energy in the universe can probably not be understood without reference to life and consciousness. And this has made me re-think my opinions about the nature of human life. It seems we really are (as an Episcopal priest once told me) co-creators of the universe.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Literary critics were a little hard on Gladwell's second book, Blink. But it has sold well, so evidently there's a market for interesting presentations of psycho-sociological aspects of our minds and our culture. Gladwell's genius lies in the facts that he writes well, tells great stories, and gets the reader to think. In Blink he writes about how snap decisions, made in the blink of an eye, often serve us very well -- even better than would careful consideration of more information. He also gives examples of how other times snap decisions can lead to disaster. Many of the examples he gives are drawn from the world of marketing, but there are also examples from medicine, police work, and the world of art. Blink is a fun read and will get you thinking, but you will have to come to your own conclusions because the author doesn't really provide one.