JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

“‘Any book that is worth reading once, is worth reading twice”--B. Franklin.

 “Read much, but do not read many books”–Pliny

In my recent history there are many works whose titles I cannot help to ignore because they are, frankly, impenetrable for me–Nature has partially become that way for me, particularly with the biological sciences. In an extreme show of what I do not know, there is an entire legion of them that are published every day whose titles are so distant from my knowledge base that they might as well be invisible.  There many others titles that almost call out for unknown infamy, like John Jeb, of Calhoun County and My Search for Truth by any number of people, and on into the immobile night, widened by an entire new galaxy of the self-published.  Of course, if there were slight changes in those titles, like, say John Jeb, of Calhoun County, Me or My–My!–Search for Truth they become instantly interesting.

On the other hand there are those books whose titles simply cannot be ignored because they are weirdly inflammatory, or coyly hyperbolic, or halfway unintentionally and trippingly absurdist, and the like.  The Story of a Ripe Banana is one such title for me, and is a fine example for the category of books whose titles are far more interesting than the work they describe.