GOOD READING

1) The Uranium People by Leona Marshall-Libby (Crane Russak, New York, 1979, 341 pp., hardb. $15.95) is a delightful memoir by the youngest, and only female, scientist among Enrico Fermi's group that built the world's first nuclear reactor in 1942. She gives us a first-hand view of the physicists who shaped history in Chicago, the Argonne Forest, Los Alamos, Hanford, and Livermore. Her emphasis is on the persons somewhat more than on their work, and almost all of them emerge as highly likeable human beings in spite of their little failings (we learn about Szilard's toilet habits, Fermi's vanity, his widow Laura's unthinking support of the 1976 California antinuclear initiative, and innumerable other tidbits). Not counting Klaus Fuchs, whom we do not meet "personally," the one exception is Robert Oppenheimer, who is treated with comparative briefness and without mention of the otherwise often recounted examples of his phoniness (e.g., voting for immediate dropping of the bomb without prior public demonstration in private, then melodramatically preaching in public about physicists having known sin). Even so, to this reviewer, he emerges from the book more distasteful than ever: He was into mysticism and Hinduism, and his mystic gibberish seems to characterize him as a role player in search of style rather than substance. He may impress you differently, but in any case, it is a valuable and delightful book.

2) Solar Energy: A False Hope by Samuel McCracken in the November 1979 Commentary is as exquisite as McCracken's pieces always are, and once again we look forward to the correspondence two issues hence, in which his hapless critics will limp away in total defeat after having tangled with this master. Hey, Amory, how about writing in?

6) The Government Against the Economy by Prof. G. Reisman is an excellent book on the free-market mechanism and the evils of government interference, particularly price controls, with many examples drawn from the energy market (e.g., the natural gas crisis of 1977). 207 pp., hardb., regularly $12.95, but current AtE readers (so state) can get it for $11 postpaid from Caroline House Publ., Dept. 11-R, Box 738, Ottawa, IL 61350.

7) Cancer: Science and Society by J. Cairns (Freeman, San Francisco, 1978; 199pp., softb. $6.95). The author is a famous cancer authority and explains things fairly simply for laymen (of which this writer is one), though at times the lay reader will have to struggle with unfamiliar concepts like recessive and dominant genes. Energy is nowhere mentioned, and our excuse for listing the book is the light it sheds on cancers induced by radiation, and the deeper reasons why radiation is a far less effective cause of cancer than chemicals. But there are many other reasons why this is a highly useful book for those who wish to stand up to brainwashers using cancer scares.