Listening to audio books is something I missed quite a bit when I was in Beijing. I have been hooked on "reading" books since late 1990's. My good friend JN heard of my interest in mythology and loaned me a deck of tapes, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. I enjoyed listening to this book while driving to and from work. I did not read anything further by Joseph Campbell. But, I ventured into local libraries to start my audio book journey. I still remember that the first one I picked was "Robinson Crusoe." That was one of the few translated non-textbooks I read. I read very little for enjoyment when I was young. The number of books I actually finished reading in English is small. I can remember one, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. Three or four years into this new new hobby, I kept a record of the books I "read", and even gave them a score from 1 to 10. I have to thank JN for leading me into a life of reading and enrichment.
The most recent book I finished is Michael Crichton's "Next", a book about genetic research, corporate greed and legal intervention. He is probably most famous for "Jurassic Park", because it was turned into a successful series of movies. It surprised me to learn that this prolific author, Dr. Crichton, died of lymphoma in 2008. There are two interesting characters/animals in the novel, a transgenic chimp, Dave, and a transgenic African grey parrot, Gerard. This is fictional, but it is not too far from what we might run into these new breeds in the future. We need to consider the ethical and moral responsibilities of our actions.
"Next" is overall a good book with a bit too much on the side plots, and thus it is hard to focus on the main plot. The odd part is that the audio CD ended with an interview with the author. Dr. Crichton actually felt very strongly about the ethical dimension of the genetic research and its ramifications for our future. Indeed, I was happy to have that extra segment on the CD. It let me know that the book is not just a novel to him. I took a refresher class in Chemistry 1A at West Valley community college in 2001 and another class in human genetics at the height of human genome news and the cloned Dolly the Sheep. It was and still is exciting to see molecular biology making such progress, but it requires us to ponder the ethical and moral issues of genetic research.
After I came back to the States in April, I read "Christ the Lord: the Road to Cana," by Ann Rice; "Treasure Island," by Robert Louis Stevenson; "Saving fish from drowning," by Amy Tan; and "Next". I am now in the middle of "Op-Center - State of Siege," by Tom Clancy. Listening to a thriller while driving is questionable. I was so involved in the book and I had no recollection of going through the toll both with my FasTrak sticker.
Shanghai was mentioned several times in the book as a heaven for generic research and gene therapy. Is this really true? For lack of any ethical concerns and social responsibilities in the regulations? I have to ask my good friend in Nanjing who is leading a genetic research institute there. Nanjing is about 100 miles from Shanghai.
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