O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

Alexandra Bergson has lived on the land and worked it since her father's death. Sixteen years later, she is the most prosperous landowner on the Divide, a valley that stretches across the Nebraska prairie. She has three brothers, a childhood friend, and a beautiful friend. Her love of the land keeps her through the hardships that come.

So sad! Cather makes everyone so real, and it is much worse when trouble comes to them than in average books. I spent a good fifteen minutes after I finished it staring at the wall, because I could see it in my head. Alexandra is the feminist, the woman who can stand on her own and prospers, but she is still human. Even Cather, who was a civil rights activist, could not say that when women were independent they were perfectly happy.

Zero: the History of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

Zero- cultures have feared it, banned it, revered it, and finally accepted it. It is infinity's twin. The Church believed it first to be heresy, then to prove God's existence. It is the number that is needed for calculus, the math of nature, but also is the center of black holes. Seife explores the number's history, from Aristotle to Albert Einstein and beyond.

Very good. It was very interesting- the Greeks didn't like zero because it didn't fit in with their philosophies; Christians didn't like it because they thought it was contradicting God's nature; but the Mayans' first day of each month was the zero-eth day. It was all about religion. The Hindus worshipped it as part of a god, Shiva. It's like Copernicus- when we think something messes with our doctrine, we try to ignore it and call everyone who believes in it heretics.
Believe in zero.

Happy Thanksgiving!