BOOK CAPSULE REVIEWS

“How to Teach Physics to Your Dog”

By Chad Orzel (Scribner, 256 pages, $24)

The promise is enticing — a book that explains quantum physics in a way that’s so simple to understand, even a dog can learn it.

Though the book did introduce me to some of the general principles of quantum physics, just like most science classes I’ve taken, I understood less the further it progressed.

Chad Orzel, a physics professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., finds a muse in his dog, Emmy. She noses around his quantum physics books and wants to use some of the ideas — teleporting and tunneling — to catch bunnies and squirrels in the yard.

It’s a gimmick, but a cute one. Each chapter starts and ends with a conversation between Emmy and Orzel that reduces a scientific concept to bunnies, squirrels and dog treats.

For people who are smarter than the average mixed-breed dog, this might be a good way to learn about the nature of microscopic particles. But I’m waiting for Orzel to write something more on my level, like “How to Teach Physics to a Tapeworm.”

Coralie Carlson, Associated Press

“The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers”

By Thomas Mullen (Random House, 416 pages, $26)

Few things are sure in Thomas Mullen’s latest novel, including death. Set during the Great Depression, when criminals such as Bonnie and Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd and John Dillinger became folk heroes for many of the downtrodden who saw banks as the enemy, life was violent and so was death. For Jason and Whit Fireson — dubbed the Firefly Brothers by the press — death was also a recurring event.

Mullen follows up his acclaimed debut novel, “The Last Town on Earth,” with a mysterious and compelling romp through the 1930s when the FBI was out to make a name for itself and the world was full of poverty and discontent.

“The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers” opens with a very puzzled Jason waking up befuddled and trying to figure out what’s going on. Jason and Whit, each bearing bloody bullet holes after being on the losing end of a gunfight, awaken in the dirty back room of a police station where their naked bodies have been dumped. Word of their demise spreads even as police invent a story of stolen bodies to explain their mysterious disappearance.

Life after death doesn’t change much for the brothers. Although their myth grows, bank robbery is still a way of life.

Mullen does a great job of recreating the bleak times of the Great Depression with its bread lines, Hoovervilles, dangers and starkness in beautifully descriptive passages. In such a world, it’s easy to understand why the flamboyant Firefly Brothers attract both mythical and popular status.

Mary Foster, Associated Press

“The Glass Room”

By Simon Mawer (Other Press, 405 pages, $14.95)

It’s no surprise that British novelist Simon Mawer’s “The Glass Room” was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Covering six decades of one of the most tumultuous periods of European history, it’s successful on at least three levels: as a historical novel of Europe before, during and after World War II, as a tale of erotic attraction, and as a meditation on the inspirational qualities of and limits to the power of aesthetics.

Just after World War I, wealthy Czech businessman Viktor Landauer commissions a German architect to build a modernist home for himself and his family, a Mondrian painting made three dimensional. At its centerpiece: a glass room where the family can entertain, display their wealth and erudition and let the light of nature and reason in.

Of course, the reader knows what’s coming (Viktor is Jewish). As the Nazis gain power and German tanks roll toward the Czech border, and as Viktor’s love life gets messy, he and his wife, Liesel, realize the transparency and openness implied by the room are at risk — as are their lives.

Incredibly, the home survives bombs, the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and then their rout by Soviet troops, and the dark years when freethinking Czechoslovakia was ruled by Soviet puppets. Particularly chilling are chapters where the house is transformed by the Nazis into a research lab.

“The Glass Room” relies a bit too much on coincidence to drive its plot. But it’s an old-fashioned, beautifully constructed novel of history, passion and ideas.

Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times