New book traces origin of AIDS

The New York Times published a review of a really interesting book this week. The book is called The Origin of AIDS and it is written by Dr. Jacques Pepin. From the review, it looks like a really detailed, well researched book and is obviously very interesting to me, because my PhD work is on the evolution of HIV.

I glanced through the book at Barnes and Noble this afternoon and it really looks pretty detailed. Basically, the author has pieced together clinical information, historical data, HIV sequence data and come up with some very plausible ideas about how AIDS initially spread. He talks about how 'amplification' of the virus occurred and postulates that there were four different points at which the virus jumped from apes to humans. He also discusses the role Western countries, as imperial powers, played in spreading the virus.

President Bush read 40 books in 2008?

According to Karl Rove's column in the Wall Street Journal this morning, him and President Bush have an ongoing friendly reading competition over the past few years. That's very healthy on several fronts and having a sitting president with an interest in reading is impressive. But does President Bush really have such a voracious appetite for books? According to Rove, Bush has read a 186 books over the past 3 years! It's a little hard to believe considering what we think we know about the president from his mannerisms. His reading list from 2008 is as follows...

His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War," Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

That's certainly a heavy dose of history...

Anyway, if its true, then I am very surprised on two fronts. Firstly, I had no idea President Bush even read. He doesn't come off to me as a book worm. But 40 books or more a year? Though not impossible, my second gripe with this claim is how a president, of the United States no less, finds time to do that?

Either way, I'm embarrassed for myself. I need to catch up on my reading list.

Book recommendation: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

I recently read "The Namesake" by Pulitzer prize winning author, Jhumpa Lahiri, the lady pictured below. I picked it up at Penn Station in New York City last Saturday and started it while traveling back home to Jersey. It was difficult to put down and I ended up finishing it at one sitting.

It's about this Indian family from Calcutta who settle down in Massachusetts. It follows their lives across 40 odd years, from the time the patriarch, Ashoke Ganguli, first comes to the US, attending MIT to pursue his PhD. He travels back to Calcutta during this time, to get an arranged married to Ashima. The couple live in Cambridge and eventually have two children, Gogol and Sonali, at which point, the book begins to focus on Gogol's life.

The main character is Gogol, however we experience a lot of the story, and the family's life events, through every one's eyes. That helps us understand the Ganguli's as a family and their Bengali culture on the whole, a lot better.

I liked that I could relate to the son and the dad at times. Naturally, there was the usual conflict between being Indian and the West, but it didn't seem regurgitated this time. As a result, the tale wasn't boring or frustrating as it usually becomes in American Desi type situations. I found that aspect to be quite fresh, perhaps because its through the eyes of an Indian Bengali family, rather than North Indian or Pakistani, which I can relate to better. It was also fun to read the names of familiar streets in the Cambridge area!

However, I felt the story was a bit 'filmy' at times. A little too exaggerated and I suppose it was easier to just move past those parts.

Needless to say, a movie based on this book is coming out in March 2007 starring Kal Penn and directed by Mira Nair. Penn is an uninspired choice to play Gogol Ganguli, but I suppose he is the most recognizable actor of Indian origin in Hollywood. I enjoy Mira Nair's work, and the author, Jhumpa Lahiri has a cameo in the film, so I assume she had plenty of input in the screenplay. I suppose there is a chance that the movie can pull it off.

You can find the book at Amazon...