Don't Bother Reading "Acts of the Apostles"

Read Biodigital instead.

After reviewing John Sundman's Biodigital, I promised to report back after reading Acts of the Apostles which shares about 60% of its text.

It's very unusual for a lay reader to have access to two versions of a book in this way. Biodigital is partly the result of the sort of editorial work that goes on behind the scenes of publishing, and to read Acts is to become aware of sausage making that is usually invisible.

The bottom line is that Biodigital is a much better book. You won't miss anything if you skip Acts. While there's a lot of tightening here and there, there are two big changes which lead me to urge you to set aside Acts.

The first is Gordon Biersch, which has been removed from the book. Gordon Biersch opened in 1988 on Emerson Street in Palo Alto, California. I remember when it opened, it was a revelation. The beer was pretty good, and the food was designed to go with the beer. Today, this sort of place has a name: "gastro-pub", but back in 1988, that word didn't exist, at least in the vocabulary of grad students like me. Yuppies flocked to the place and by the time Sundman was writing Acts, it signified everything good and bad about Silicon Valley. But since then, Gordon Biersch has gone all Vegas. No really, the founders were bought out by money from Las Vegas. Today, there's a Gordon Biersch gastropub in 34 places where restaurants are allowed to brew beer, including 4 in Taiwan. It's owned by the same company that owns "Rock Bottom" brewpubs.

In Biodigital, the events that occurred at Gordon Biersch have been moved a mile or so southeast to Antonio's Nut House. Antonio's is still around. Like everything else in the area, it's changed, but it's not like Silicon Valley changed into Las Vegas. It's like Sun Microsystems changed into Google. I went and had a beer there when I was visiting earlier this month. I took pictures. Google maps has a walk-through view.


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The other big change is the book's depiction of Bartlett Aubrey. Bartlett, the estranged wife of hero Nick Aubrey, is supposed to be a brilliant molecular biologist, but in Acts, she mostly has big breasts. It's not a realistic portrait at all, more of an adolescent fantasy character. In Biodigital, references to Bartlett's breasts are cut by 50%, and I swear that's not why I thought the character was a lot smarter than in Acts.

So, support your local author. Or your local beer bar. Better yet, do both at the same time.