The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. It’s a fun book.

Recommendation: Folks should take a look at The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra. It can really help you understand the relationship between the fundamental sciences and everyday life.

We almost never watch TV, but we like movies—both going to them and renting as well. We watch different kinds of things, from adventure to esoterica. Recently, my son and I found Shaun of the Dead, and I loved it.

Recommendation: If people want to see a film that will freak them out, one of the most memorable is Eraserhead. Oh my God, I will never forget that one. It just amazes me how you can, with nothing more than a little bit of cinematography, affect people physically.

I listen to a variety of music, and very seriously, so it’s hard for me to pick out any one thing. Right now in my house you’d hear Ozzie Osbourne’s Crazy Train, because my son’s band plays it; if I plugged in the IPOD there would be Joni Mitchell, Good Charlotte, and Yo-Yo Ma. What I don’t listen to is opera, for some reason.

Recommendation: Lucinda Williams, Live at the Fillmore.

Right now I’m reading The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant. The Dogtown book is set in the 1800s in a village outside Gloucester Mass. I loved “The Secret Life of Bees,” by Sue Monk Kidd. It is a great human interest story about a spunky young orphaned white girl befriended by a household of black women in South Carolina in the 1960s. Next I want to read some history about John Adams – I’m from Quincy and I think John and Abigail Adams are interesting.

Recommendation: Working on the Edge, by Spike Walker. It’s about the Alaska king crab fishery, and it’ll scare the socks off you.

We just got cable, and I’m happy to be watching PBS without all the fuzz and static. I don’t like war, but I get absorbed in the World at War shows and by America’s Test Kitchen, by Cook’s Illustrated. This is the science of cooking. I also watch PBS specials, and NOVA. And MCSI and the CSI shows – I love the idea that lab geeks are so glorified in those shows.

Recommendation: The Red Green Show, if you get it where you live. It’s on PBS late at night. It’s a Canadian spoof. They also have a movie: Duct Tape Forever.

Cesaria Evora, a Cape Verdean folk singer. I don’t understand the language but the music and her voice are captivating. Also Manuel Obregon’s Symbosis CD. He’s a Costa Rican musician who brought his piano into the rain forest and played music with the sounds of the wild life, so you hear birds and piano, howler monkeys and the Mt. Arenal volcano rumbling in the background. Roseanne Cash’s Black Cadillac– it was recommended by a friend. I like Jason Mraz, especially Waiting for My Rocket To Come.

Recommendation: This will be hard to find, but people should try Throat Culture, a group of medical students who made an a cappella album. My favorite song on the A Cappella Head CD is Easter Island Head, which has a line that is my retirement dream – staring out to sea and doing nothing, just like an Easter Island head.

Posted 9/14/06