Reading List May 2020

A Japanese light novel and two scientific texts.

(Non-scientific)

1. I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! A light-hearted novel that I read in a single night (up to Volume 5, chapter 6 as of today). Similar to novels like Tilea’s Worries and My Death Flags Show No Signs of Ending!, the story is driven by egregious misunderstandings by the protagonist. Briefly, the story is set in a distant future wherein humanity has established an intergalactic empire that follows a feudalistic system of government. The protagonist reincarnates in a formerly well-to-do Count household, but is abandoned by his biological parents almost immediately after birth, and instead left under the care of an android. Due to a past life on Earth riddled by hardships from relationships with women, the protagonist actually prefers the presence of said android over that of other humans. Furthermore, the hardships of his past life spur him to pursue life as an ‘Evil Lord,’ but his actions, unbeknownst to him, tend to have the opposite effect on his surroundings, and he becomes respected by his colleagues, subordinates, and citizens of his territory. Moreover, by ridiculously grand strokes of good fortune, the protagonist overcomes challenge after challenge and steadily develops his galactic peerage into an economic and military superpower. The story is mostly action and drama, but involves some business and politics, as well. A very good read!

(Scientific)

1. Storytelling with data My undergraduate neuroscience professor once recommended Jean-Luc Dumont’s materials on preparing and giving presentations, but I have unfortunately been unable to internalize his teachings. However, I recently found another resource, Storytelling with Data, which communicates similar ideas, but perhaps more concretely. Not all of the ideas are necessarily applicable to science. Instead, they seem particularly oriented towards communicating business/marketing data.

2. Mathematical Aspects of Hodgkin-Huxley Neural Theory This book by Dr. Jane Cronin (unfortunately, I believe she has since passed) is an excellent, intuitive introduction to the work of Hodgkin and Huxley. For electrophysiologists, there are several definitive texts. Personally, these include Bertil Hille’s “Ionic Channels of Excitable Membranes,” Molecular Devices’ “The Axon Guide,” and Kandel et al.’s “Principles of Neural Science.” However, Cronin’s text offers the most accessible treatment of the Hodgkin-Huxley model in my opinion, and is very clearly written with respect to both the mathematics and relevant experimental findings.