The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft

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Great short story. An unnamed narrator uncovers the story of a meteorite crash near the fictional town of Arkham many years before. The meteorite affected plants, animals, and people around the crash site. Sightings were reported of a strange organic thing of some, previously unknown, colour. I also watched a movie adaptation, in German with subtitles, which I found faithful to the original. I liked that it was in black and white, except for "the colour out of space." Recommend 👍🏽 I've been reading this ginormous tome with H.P. Lovecraft's Complete Fiction since 2018. I'm reading it in order. Slowly. No pressure. I'm a bit over 50% now. And getting to Lovecraft's most famous work.

Esperando al Diluvio (Awaiting the flood) by Dolores Redondo.

Super fun, gripping, and addictive read. Could not stop. Literally. It is not a perfect story. I had to suspend my disbelief, but I enjoyed it. I found some incongruencies and some corny scenes but kept reading cos I wanted to know what was going to happen. The novel is very immersive. I was transported to Glasgow and then Bilbao. I forgot I was reading a book!! I guess Redondo is really good with (gross/brutal) crime, suspense, and thriller, but I don't think romance is her thing.

Exterminator 17 written by Dionnet, drawn by Bilal and Baranko

There are 4 stories in the book. The original Exterminator 17 by Dionnet and Bilal and the sequel trilogy by Dionnet and Baranko. I liked the first story, charged with philosophical themes like the meaning/nature of life, mortality and the ethics of the use of technologies. Amazing artwork. Interesting read, but the ending was unsatisfactory. Actually it didn't feel like an ending. The trilogy was a bit of a let down. Not much food for thought but the Exterminator 17 in a boring gangster plot. The art was OK, but not at the level of Bilal's.

Human Society. How Evolution and Psychology shaped our world. New Scientist. Essential Guide No 14.

Includes a variety of articles looking at civilisation and our societies from different perspectives. My favourites were the ones about evolution, social hierarchies, and religion. I'd like to read more about religion. I want to understand why humans tend to and need to belief. Was religion the catalyst for the formation of big societies and our current civilisation? As Steven Pinker says, "belief in God is a kind of belief you hold for its moral benefits, not for its factual accuracy." Three theories explain why we believe: Cognitive by-product theory: "religious belief is a side effect of cognitive skills that evolved for other reasons." Someone who believes that (all) events are caused by agents have more chances of survival than someone who doesn't. Theory of Mind: a mechanism which "evolved so that we could infer the mental states and intentions of others, even if they aren't physically present." This is extended to assign mental states and intentions to inanimate objects or invisible entities. Existential Insecurity - fear of death, randomness, and loss of control can be soothed if we belief there is someone looking after us and that death isn't the end.

Choice of Gods by Clifford Simak.

A good read with philosophical food for thought. It's a critique of our worship and dependency on technology and the neglect for everything in nature. Those who were taken were technology worshipers and continued to be in the planet's they were sent to. The ones who stayed developed a strong connection with nature, especially the Indians. While white people had strong roots on earth, they relied on the robots for all their household and farming work. This seemed to me a contradiction, but after thinking a bit, I realised this is how many of us live, in love with nature and with our dishwashers, cars, and smartphones. Anyways the ending was a bit unclear to me, but I guess it was well worth the ride.

Immoderate Greatness. Why civilisations fail by William Ophuls.

This is a great short book that explains why and how civilisations collapse. Apparently, the problem is in their very nature. In their magnitude, in their Greatness. A comment by Thomas Homer-Dixon in the back of the book says, "Ophuls superbly synthesises a huge amount of literature and presents the synthesis in an easy accessible format with beautiful clear prose." It's true. The book is charged with a lot of analysis, but it is not a difficult read. You just need to be interested in the topic. Homer-Dixon continues, "There is no false optimism here. The patient (modern human civilisation) is critically and perhaps terminally ill," yeah, from Ophuls explanation, it seems that's the case. The book is divided in two big sections Biophysical limits (including ecological exhaustion, exponential growth, expedited entropy and excessive complexity) and Human Error (moral decay and practical failure). Each issue is explained in a separate chapter. But the book is not only about problems. Ophuls shares more of his wisdom at the end, and alternative to a solution in the very last paragraph.

The Beak of the Finch: a story of evolution in our time by Jonathan Weiner.

This is about empirical studies proving some of Darwin’s most important concepts. Weiner tells the story of Rosemary and Peter Grant, evolutionary biologists, who spent years in the Galápagos islands observing Finches. Their objective was to observe, witness evolution in real time. And they did. The book explains what and how they did their observations and most importantly how they came to their conclusions. One aspect I liked about the book is that the author takes its time going back to Darwin’s original ideas providing historical and scientific context. I particularly liked some segments where Weiner explains Darwin’s conflicting ideas, having been a religious person, and following Milton’s ideas and then realising about the reality of evolution. The Grant’s studied the shape, and sizes of the finches' beaks in all their varieties. Compared their eating and mating habits with their beaks and were able to draw connections. They found out that the islands have so many finch varieties so every variety could have different food sources, usually seeds. The kinds of seeds a finch can eat depends on the shape, size and strength of their beaks. The Grant’s noted that during the wet seasons all finches feasted on all kinds of seeds (the ones they could eat), but during dry seasons each variety would focus on their speciality. Finches would die when their special seeds were scarce. Just a tiny variation in the length of a beak would make a bird unable to open a seed and eat it. In hard times (draughts) hundreds of birds would die and the ones who survive would reproduce more. You can call this natural selection. This way finches would adapt to the kind of foods which are available at some point in time. This and sexual selection, females selecting males with particular characteristics (e.g. with long or deep beaks) would determine how variations happen. So variations -> natural selection + sexual selection.