Becky's Books –

I Will Find You was on my Wish List because I enjoy the occasional suspenseful and gritty works of Harlan Conan.  And then, yesterday there came a sale so Audible kindly notified me something on my Wish List was On Sale. .  LOL  (This is an advantage to having a rather lengthy Wish List.)

I Will Find You 
by Harlan Conan
2023  
Read by Steven Weber 10h 16m
Rating: B+ / mystery-thriller 

David Burroughs, the story’s protagonist and frequent 1st person narrator, is serving a life sentence for the murder of his 3-year old son.  He says he was wrongfully convicted, but is too depressed to fight the case.  He even says he was “responsible” in some vague way. but still insists he “didn’t do it.”  We believe him, but virtually no one else does.  His family claims he was mentally ill at the time.  

 The warden at the prison is David’s close friend going back to childhood years. And that close friend is a very close friend of his father so it’s like 2 generations of close friendships. This friend who is now warden has seen to it that David is kept in a more secure wing of the prison and looks out for him in some other ways.  

One day David’s ex-sister-in-law pays him an unexpected visit and shows him some photos. Is Matthew still alive?  It gets complicated and twisted and quite unlikely, but I enjoyed it, as usual with Cuban’s books; they’re entertaining. 

 Steven Weber does a very skillful job of narrating the book. I’ve enjoyed his work before and will likely continue.  

I read The Ex-Pats by Chris Pavone years ago, in 2012 going by my blog, and rated it a B+ .When The Paris Diversion came out, t almost  jogged my memory. but not quite. Then I saw it on sale a few weeks ago and got it but stashed it. When I did get it started something felt familiar, in fact, I thought maybe I’d read it before!  I checked the plot summary again and no- I have not ever read this book.  It’s a sequel to The Ex-Pats which was released in 2012 and I read not too long later.  That’s long enough to forget major parts though.  

The Paris Diversionn
by Chris Pavone
2019
Read by Mozhan Marno 12h 7m
Rating –  8.5 / spy suspense – 

Now, a few years down the road, Kate  and Dexter are living in Paris with their sons and again, not really knowing much about each others’  business, keeping secrets from each other even though they both still carry a load of guilt. They’re both afraid of something, but there are a number of places that fear could originate. Meanwhile a paid Muslim terrorist is on the streets. 

Pavone is great. I’m read along with the tension slowly building in short chapters moving from one character’s actions to another with some suspicious dialogue or activity when suddenly there’s a serious plot twist. One item of interest opens a door in the plot and moves the reader along toward what looks like an imminent nightmare or chaos 

This is not a conventional spy novel. The protagonists and their “assets” as well as their victims are going after the big bucks in international investment banking and con games. Their enemies are any kind of law enforcement as well as each other. That said, it definitely feels 100% like a spy thriller The first book is not so strongly oriented that way but in this book the 2nd in the series, there were times I was very confused simply due to the nature of the spy game.. I just kept reading and the explanations came later although I did have to reread a chapter or two.  

Pavone writes very nicely and the narrator Mozhan Marno, is excellent.  I likely should have read the first book

Pathetic book – don’t bother.  I’m not sure what kept me going.  There are more than a few very gritty and graphic scenes of sex and violence.  One of that cast of narrators is NOT at his best. I think I bought it confusing Camilla. Grebe with Camilla Lackberg because of the name and that they both write noir Swedish crime novels.  I’ve read maybe 4 (?) of Lackberg’s.  

The Ice Beneath Her
By Camilla Grebe, 
Elizabeth Clark Wessel – translator
2015 in US 
Read by a cast: 12h 29m
|Rating C- noir crime 
Hanne Lagerlind-Schon, Book 1

A woman’s body is found with several knife wounds and her head chopped off. The police have one of the two plot threads here and they figure out who’s dead. So the question is who could have done it?

The detectives, Helen, Manfred, Peter, and Sanchez discuss the case and each other. They interview people and visit locations. These chapters are interspersed with a backstory as well as continuing story of the life of the victim and her relationship to a man who might turn out to be her killer.  He borrows money and steals things from her. The book opens several months before the body is found and follows her as their relationship unfolds with each little section moving closer to the police involvement time frame. 

Here is where I thought it got dicey. Was I interested in knowing about Esme’s sad childhood and her teen years? It’s all rather boring and the characters are not even likable. The only plot thread which might be interesting to follow in subsequent novels would be what’s happening to Helen, the police officer.

Oh what a fine book to start of a n ew month!   I picked this up thanks to a recommendation from a friend whose tastes I respect and besides, it had been on my Wish List at Audible for a couple months already (along with about 200 other books).  Whatever –  as it turns out I got the library book because it was available.  

The Dictionary of Lost Words 
by Pip Williams
2021/ 
Read by Pippa Bennett-Warner 11h 11m
Rating:  9.5 / great historical fiction

WWI is a very popular setting for novels of historical fiction. The era included many things in addition to the war itself, women’s suffrage among them. The Dictionary of Lost Words starts out right before the turn of the century and winds up in an epilogue to current day but it’s mostly through the war. The events described are well grounded in verifiable history, but the life of the protagonist along with that of her family and friends are fictional. There are many historical “events” described, and for the main characters to deal with, or be involved with as well as just setting a tone for the era.     

Esme, a young motherless woman has been interested in words from a very young age because her father is a lexicographer working to get the first Oxford English Dictionary published. The year is 1890 or so.  Again, the book was inspired by real events: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette

English women of the Victorian era were unable to vote or do much of anything without a man taking charge of them. In fact women’s suffrage wasn’t granted until 1928 (in the US it was 1920 with some limitations. In France it was 1944! (With the Iroquois it was a pre-Columbian thing – LOL!)

There really isn’t much of a linear plot here – it’s more like a series of events some of which lead to other things – a bit episodic in a way. But Esme is a very bright young girl growing up at the same time and in the same place the Oxford Dictionary is being produced and Esme loves words. It’s almost like a coming of age story, but her circumstances are very different from today’s young women or even those of most young women in the very early 1900s.

Anyway, Williams breaks the grim plot with humor because while still a young woman Esme becomes a lexicographer; learning new words along with definitions and origins is her job. She loves it and wants to advance in her job with that publisher where new words or usages are sent in by the public of almost all economic classes and social levels. The dictionary took four decades to produce. (The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (1998) is also non-fiction about the Oxford Dictionary.

There are a number of important people mentioned including James Murray, the first editor of the dictionary and Emmeline Pankhurst and others involved are mentioned when Esme gets interested in the suffragettes.  It seems women and other groups have their own words not found in mainstream dictionaries. That becomes Esme’s self-proclaimed job. The whole thing is fascinating . There’s a lot there and I could read it again.

The Oxford Dictionary includes all known and verifiable usages as well as the first known use.

I’m not generally a fan of life science as a subject of study or as individual books for my library, but my reading group seems determined to get me educated and I’ve gotten used to the books.   Actually, I’m really quite fond of several of my reads from the last few years l and this book,  Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life has to go into that category.  

Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life 
By Nick Lane
2005 – 524 pages
Read by Nigel Patterson 15h 54m
Rating:  9: life science
(Both read and listened) 

With this book I got more and more interested as I went along, and yup, I’m going to try to reread it. Nick Lane is an excellent writer of science books (not texts!)(not texts!),  keeping the reader’s attention and the material simple without being simplistic.  He’s got a great dry sense of humor and he’s done a very good job of organizing his material.  This is the first book on mitochondria intended for the general public.  Lane has written about many note-worthy science books for the general public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Lane

The title is snappy anyway and the was short-listed for the 2006 Royal Society Book Award.  cGenerally it’s “ a 2005 popular science book by Nick Lane of University College London, which argues that mitochondria are central to questions of the evolution of multicellularity, the evolution of sexual reproduction, and to the process of senescence.”  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Prizes_for_Science_Books

Rather than “source notes”  Lane has a section called Further Reading which is organized so that each Part has its own section divided into topics. 

Lastly, the narrator, Nigel Patterson, is simply wonderful. Sometimes with these narrators of science books I really get the feeling that it’s the author who is reading it.  

Savage Run, is the second novel in the Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box. I have dipped around in this series,  but I’m ready to go in sequential order probably because I read Box’s 4-book Cassie Dewell series  (4 books) and loved them.  So I thought I’d look at the Joe Pickett books more carefully.  

Savage Run
By C.J. Box 
Read by David Chandler 8h 48m
Rating – A / Crime Fiction 
(#2 in Joe Pickett series)

Joe Pickett  is living and working near his home turf in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming – the northwest area near Yellowstone.  Just recently a a cow exploded near where a newlywed couple were spiking trees. Spiking trees is an activist action in support of saving the trees,  but the wife dies from injuries. Joe investigates and his own new wife Marybeth starts getting phone calls from someone identifying as her high school boyfriend. But wait a minute – that’s the married guy who just got blown up.  These are only 2 of the several people recently deceased thanks to peculiar adventures. 

It’s a nicely fast-paced book and Joe can be a pretty funny guy as can Box’s other characters.

Okay – I caved and now I’m going to rave. This is such a fine, fine book.  It’s so fun in so many ways.  It’s real, it’s informative, it’s funny. It’s tension-packed, it’s sad and it’s a page-turner, it’s award material. I loved it.  I laughed and cried and held my breath. If I had known I’d appreciated it this much I’d have bought both versions in a heartbeat.  

Spare
by Prince Harry 
2023 / 410 pages
Read by Prince Harry 15h 39m
Rating: 9 / Memoir 
(Both read and listened)

The thing is I got both the Kindle and the Audio from the library within 24 hours of when I put myself on the list. I really wasn’t sure if I’d appreciate the book or not. It seems that either people are getting to chapter 3 and skipping the book or they’re getting to Chapter 3 and digging in. I definitely dug in (And I returned them pronto.)

All that said, it’s a long book – especially if you listen to it as I did, reading some paragraphs or pages from the Kindle if I needed to and then getting ahead in the Kindle and listening again to catch up.    

I found it to be, for the most part, a very honest book. He loved his mother, Diana, and has loathed the press ever after Diana’s death. He loves his family, dysfunctional though it is while despising the leakers and creators of palace gossip. I admire his dedication to service whether it be in the military or for children in Africa. .

Fwiw, I had no particular “side” in the family/press difficulties before reading the book – I knew the press wasn’t impartial. Rupert Murdoch is in it for the money on all sides of the pond. I’m really just rather sad for the family and the people who genuinely love them. 

  The book is very nicely written in generally chronological order and with excellent pacing. It has short chapters so it seems like it’s a fast read. But it’s not – or it wasn’t for me. With 400+ pages there’s simply a lot to cover. The family dynamics are interesting, but there’s a lot to Harry’s life I had no idea of or just some bare outlines.  

 Harry is neither grandiose nor self-deprecating. He’s kind of humble, but human in that he reveals deep anger and insecurities as well as a fair amount of pride.  I was aware of how intrusive the British press was, but still I was surprised and a bit outraged for Harry, his family and friends. But trying to get the news from the tabloids is a non-starter and I don’t think they’re quite as aggressive in the US (Although these days with the politics involved it can get very hairy-scary.

The memoir is supposedly authored by Prince Harry but everyone knows (or should) that he had a ghost writer. Fortunately,  J. R. Moehringer has just the right talents and  background to create a really special book. This is one of those books which can be a gift to just about anyone over the age of 15. 

It is read by Harry and he does a superb job. The accents of English royalty are not difficult to understand- they tend to be precise about articulation, but maybe a bit fast.  

Oh my –  what in the world?  This was on the Booker International Short List for 2022 so I read it because it’ss the April Booker Reading Group selection.  (Each year we read the Short Lists for the Booker Prize and the Booker International Prize.)  

A New Name: Septology VI – VII 
by Jon Fosse
Translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls
2019 / 208 pages 
Read by Kyle Snyder 7h 17m
Rating 10 – / literary fiction 
(Both read and listened) 
(Book 3 of the Septology Series) 

National Book Award’s Judge’s Citation: 

I can only quote the New York Times 2/22/2022:

“Prayerful and reflective, Jon Fosse’s A New Name takes you into a dreamlike state of reading that re-orders perceptions of time and space, all while questioning the singularity of character. Damion Searls’ English version manages to convey both concreteness and ethereality, both the sensual and the transcendent. The book is no less than a stylistic and perspectival tour de force, which gives the impression that you have lived through an entire life, perhaps more than one, in communion with its characters.’  

This is the final book of Jon Fosse’s Septology trilogy. It’s not an easy read but for me it started to be very worthwhile about midway – when Meister Eckhart’s name showed up. I kind of figured out what was happening on my own and that took some effort and highlighting.  I’m very curious about the first 2 volumes of this incredible work.  

After a break of maybe a couple days I’m going to try Septalogy volumes 1 and 2 (including Parts 1-5 between them).  

Fosse hits all the usual themes, family, identity, love, art, death and then adds the less frequently seen these days, God, devotion, “thinking.” Meanwhile Fosse is playing with some devices of fiction like doppelgangers and inventive punctuation (no periods so the book is technically one long sentence). We also have “namesakes”using very similar names and fractured chronology going from the here and now to distant memory or a different point of view all in the same paragraph (or whatever).

It’s brilliant – I now have to go find those 2 books I missed.

Although I was immediately attracted to this book when it was released back in February of 2023, I wasn’t sure how current it was – I mean I hadn’t heard anything substantive about QAnon in months, maybe not since 1/6.  I’d read a few pieces about it prior to that but is that what I was going to be getting here?  

Trust the Plan:
The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy
That Unhinged America
By: Will Sommer / 2023
Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
Length: 8 hrs and 12 min
Rating:  8.5 / politics and government  

Okay fine – tt went onto my Wish List but… well… I procrastinated. Then, out of the blue, I read something somewhere and caved.  Yes – let’s just get it.  I was wanting a good juicy nonfiction that wasn’t true crime again.  I had started a science book but that was something I had to pay close attention to (“Power, Sex, Suicide” by   Nick Lane) – so far so good in it but really,  I was ready for a kick-back and enjoy book.  

And yes, there was a lot more in this book about QAnon than I knew. Sommer has been following and investigating and reporting on QAnon for “The Daily Beast” for years. I was aware of the origins, the power struggles, and the search for the writer of the Q-Drops. but what was going on with since the rowdy followers were removed from Facebook and Twitter?   

The story is fascinating as the loose group and their leader, the anonymous”Q,” move from a base at 4-Chan to 8-Chan to Facebook and Twitter groups writing about the accusations of Child Abuse and nonsense about Covid-19. And a lot of innocent people got hurt.

 I had no idea all this was going on, but then I don’t frequent those kinds of social media. I’ve never even been curious enough to investigate, besides, maybe the news shows and sites I do go to were playing that down. I remember reading one good article about QAnon and they were mentioned in others with some mainstream TV and internet exposure thrown in.  I suspect some of my friends were more seriously infected with the ideas than I knew (sad to say).

“At its core, QAnon is about distrusting institutions. The media, the government and big business are all out to get you and your kids. The only people you can trust are QAnon and Trump.”  Chapter 7 somewhere  –  (I listened to the book.) 

“Conspiracy theories have been around since the earliest days of this country and even before. The main story is something like, “A small group of powerful persons is acting in secret for their own benefit, against the common good.”   

What is at the heart of QAnon?  Sommer says that it’s child trafficking, but he also says that “…it’s the racism and anti-Semitism which are at the heart of Q-Anon.” Having read the book I’d say it was the racism and anti-Semitism first and then it got into child trafficking which really struck a chord with the followers and brought new members in.

Sommer doesn’t go into the possible psychology of QAnon believers beyond the idea that they’re alienated from US social and cultural life and it creates problems for those who care about them – also it seems that psychologists aren’t too sure about what to do with them. Sommer’s advice is to leave them alone with their delusions as long as you can tolerate it.

QAnon is certainly not dead – in fact, it’s growing globally in some places. 

One thing I appreciated but didn’t use a lot was the Source Notes section which you can download from your Audible library (I imagine it’s included in the book but ??? ). There are about 25 pages of notes.  Sommer wrote some of what he uses in earlier articles, but certainly not all – Vanity Fair is mentioned as well as other news sources, interviews and blog posts.  

The plot line of this series starts in City on Fire, the first book of the series/trilogy, where Danny Ryan and his Irish gang in Rhode Island get into a bloody war with the Italian gang.  Danny is on both sides due to marriage and after a couple of drug deals and thefts, he ends up leaving town with some buddies as well as Danny’s brand new baby son by his newly deceased wife. .

City of Dreams 
By Don Winslow 
2023  
Read by Ari Fliakos 8h 8m
Rating A+ / crime-thriller 
(#2 in City on Fire trilogy) 

They eventually head for Los Angeles where the movie industry captures their attention. But organized crime is there, too. And Danny is also packing a lot of worries about everything – his old drunk father, money, food,  the Feds, the baby. He gets to Los Angeles and finds himself with the “fresh new start” he wants.  But it’s not new, not really. The life goes on.   

And now after escaping the Irish gang and the Moretties gang, the Providence police, as well as family problems, Danny Murphy and a couple buddies are on their way to San Diego. His wife has just died leaving him with a a baby boy to take care of on his own.  

This is a SEQUEL to City on Fire (my review on this site) which was a great novel. No, not up to the standards of The Cartel series but there was more to come and there was definite promise. I don’t know what a reader would get out of City of Dreams if they hadn’t read City on Fire.  Lots of names and plot points and confusion?  

But I did read the City on Fire first and it’s definitely better, But this, the second book, continues the tale and ties up a few ends, maybe sets the stage for #3, City of Ash.  

Anyway, Windslow is a master of writing atmospheric prose and developing believable characters along with masterfully spinning out the tension and word-smithery in general. The plots are twisty and somewhat gritty.  The narrator, Ari Fliakois, is spot-on.  

Enjoy!

Yes, I read this a second time and yes again, it was much better. I wasn’t so annoyed by the editor’s selections. I paid more attention to the substance of the essays.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2022,
Ed by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
11/2022 / 324 pages
read by a cast
Rating: 9.5 / science & nature anthology

The best essays, to me, were the ones which dealt directly with science or nature. Saying that “people are a part of nature” is a cop-out defense for using sociology or anthropology. Oh well ..

I’m contemplating a pre-order for next year’s book.

My favorite essays are probably
(Section / Title)

NATURE IS MAGNIFICENT:
“How Far Does Wildlife Roam?” by Sonia Shah –
Fascinating –

NATURE IS ROILED:
How We Drained California Dry by Mark Arax – well – he’s a favorite author anyway. I’ve read his books.

HUMANS ARE A PART OF NATURE
“Humanity is Flushing Away One of Life’s Essential Elements” by Julia Rosen

WAYS OF KNOWING:
“Your Face Is Not Your Own” by Kashmir Hill

FUTURES WE COULD HAVE
“Beavers Are Firefighters Who Work for Free” by Lucy Sherriff

My goodness these historical true crime books are becoming popular!  I remember when the novels were called “Bodice Rippers” in a very derogatory tone. They were distinctly out of favor with publishers and for university literature classes.  History was thought of as material for a thick dry thick tome.  Today it’s the stuff of Booker Prize winners while the associated college classes empty out.  

Blood & Ink: 
The Scandalous Double Murder that Hooked America on True Crime  
by  Joe Pompeo 
2022 /  344 pages
Read by Robert Petcoff 10h 4m
Rating:  9 / True Crime- history 
(read and listened)

The last time I read “True Crime” was only about 11 days ago and here I am again. And True Crime only started being an acceptable genre when the tabloids became the rage, in the 1920s. And it was this case, the case of the minister and the choir singer, which helped push the sales of dailies with their use of big photos and sensational headlines which really drew the increased sales. Pompeo’s book is both, history of tabloids and true murder mystery of Florence Hall and Jim Mill, as told to reporters possibly from the 7 morning and 11 evening papers operating in New York City.   

The Introduction is very good.  It’s written with the “how this book came-to-be” theme emphasizing the history quite naturally while wrapping it in a tale of horror. There is also some courtroom action in there – love it!

The opening pages of this book and Hell’s Half-Acre are similar in that they both open with the action of bodies being found.. Blood & Ink opens with two teenagers finding them and calling the police. Hell’s Half-Acre has a small group of men who have been alerted by a concerned neighbor. 

The latter then moves to the violent history of Kansas while Blood & Ink starts the background and descriptions of key characters. Then Pompeo moves to  procedures which include two of the policemen hitchhiking to the scene, gathering evidence, a lot of interviews and so on. Apart from these similarities the books are very different, except I certainly got the message of how important journalists and newspapers were in the US.  

The main tale of Blood & Ink is the  murder of the very married clergyman, Edward Hall, and his much younger paramour, Eleanor Miller a married singer in the church choir. They were both unhappy in their marriages so they embarked on an affair making someone very unhappy, and they were murdered.

So … who-done-it?  The tale goes from two teenagers finding the dead bodies to the police and reporters investigating and reporting, hunting for suspects and/or evidence. Then come the trials. The minister’s wife, Florence Stevens Hall, is from a prominent, old-money, New Jersey family, while Eleanor Mills  is from a family of a lower class, her husband works as a janitor at local churches. There are a lot of characters

 In the title there are two stand-out words. The first is Blood which certainly points to a murder, but the other important word is “Ink” which, it turns out,  refers to the highly competitive business of the newspapers and tabloids of the day, a lurid and lucrative driving force of the investigation and trial. This was the Jazz Age of everything including news which still had a few old muckrakers.  The style of journalism in the 1920s reflected the times with an emphasis on photos and sensationalism. It definitely attracted new paying subscribers.  

Pompeo seems to have the voice of the era, like Kate Summerscale in The Suspicians of Mr Whicher.  Perhaps this is due in part to the style of newspaper reporting at the time.  It’s very well done.

Kevin Wilson has definitely made a name for himself and his strange little novels.  He’s published five so far but this is only my second.  It won’t be my last.  

Now is Not the Time to Panic
by Kevin Wilson
2020
read by Ginnifer Goodwin 6h 13m
Rating 8 and very fun! / coming-of-age fiction

Frankie Budge is 15 when the story opens with 3 brothers, 16-year old triplets, but very few friends. One day at the beginning of summer vacation she meets a boy around her age and they strike up a friendship.  Zeke is also kind of nerdy and they become close not sexual. Zeke is talented in art and she very much enjoys writing. So that’s what they do.  They both have absent fathers and their unhappiness about that bonds them.

At some point they fix up an old copy machine and after a few practice copies create an artistically dark poster and make many copies.  They hang the posters all over their small town and eventually get noticed, commented on, and start a scandal which develops into the chaos later called the Coalfield Panic

This is a really engaging novel and although Frankie and Jake are only 15 years old I’m not sire of it’s a young-adult read or not. I think maybe 17-year olds.

I got a bit burned out on nonfiction and picked up something available from the library.   I’ve surprised myself in becoming rather attached to this series.  I’ve worked hard to appreciate them but after reading 12 out of 18.  I’ve got 2 to go and I’ll consider myself caught up because I really can’t listen to Ralph Cosham and I enjoy listening to mysteries.  

Glass Houses
By Louise penny
2017 / 
Read by Robert Bathurst 13h 32m 
Rating A- / mystery – thriller 
(#13 in Detectivec Gamash series) 

A strange party crasher dressed entirely in black arrives for the Halloween party at The Bistro, a coffee shop in Three Pines where most of the setting of this series takes place.  It a way that setting is a character itself made up of the beautiful but remote location and the people of the village.

The village of Three Pines is an idyll, a place for family, friends and comfort. There’s a bistro, a bed-and-breakfast, a bakery, a bookshop, and other small businesses all owned by different residents. You can’t get there directly unless you’re very familiar with Three Pines. The average person gets lost two or three times before arriving. That said, bad people do wander in from time to time. That’s okay – the sometimes retired Chief Inspector Armand Garmache of the Surete du Quebec is on hand to detain them if necessary.

This crasher, costumed entirely in black is not really doing anything wrong, he/she simply stands very still in one place. Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie are at the party and notice the stranger and his/her effect. It’s only the next day when the body of another party attendee, a woman this time, is found in the basement of the church that he thinks he might should have done something. A new Bistro employee has some knowledge of the strange visitor’s costume and tells the group the costume is that of a 
“cobridor” which, in Spain, is either a debtor or, relatedly, a conscience to create shame.

And then Gamache and his assistant, Jean-Guy, start collecting and juggling clues – did the stranger kill the woman? Just about all of quirky residents of Three Pines were in attendance. so that juxtaposes the thrills, suspense and tensions of the best thrillers on the market with the cozy atmosphere of the Three Pines.

Enjoy.

I got annoyed by The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2022 and wanted to read some really good science.  I’ve had Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in mind ever since 1964  when it was first published and my 9th grade science teacher gushed about it.  Okay fine – and I heard about it all through the rest of school and once in awhile since. Now is the time. Then I found it included in my membership at Audible and the Kindle version was available at the library. Oh yay me!   

Silent Spring
by: Rachel Carson 
1962/ 150 pgs Kindle)
Read by Kaiulani Lee – 10 hrs and 36 mins
Rating – 10: classic environmental science
(Both read and listened) 

I’m not sure what I was expecting from a book my teacher was enthusiastic about 60+ years ago, but it’s a whole LOT more than whatever I was thinking.  So I dived right in and a few hours later didn’t want to go to bed.  

Yes, it’s real science and yes it’s beautifully written catching both the particulars of the science and the poetry of nature. Fwiw, the narration is soft and somewhat understated adding in some way to the whole effect. As Carson states in the book,  “In nature, nothing exists alone.”  

After World War 2 both insects and plants were targeted by new approaches of control.  From the Introduction, “They should not be called “insecticides” but “biocides.”  

I’m sure the book was startling back in 1962. It’s not an easy book to read even today when so many chemicals and poisons are banned or heavily controlled by different regulating agencies.  During WWII a lot of poisons were developed for the war and by the 1950s they were in the hands of the corporations for use by the public, farmers, consumers, golf course managers, etc.  

Somehow. someone. somewhere realized that the pesticides and herbicides developed for the war might also work after the war.  And so they did – on the insects as well as on humans.  DDT was one of the first.  

The sales force was good – use more, use more, use more.  But they were putting poison in the gardens of humans and into the food stuff for humans so guess what? Humans suffered as well as other animals.  

The pesticide and herbicide industriesgrew with the help of the US Department of Agriculture and Carson is hard on everyone – government and manufacturers.  The government pushed the use of pesticides as hard as the developers and nobody really did enough research. Where we used to at least have a skull and crossbones on poison and everyone over age 8 knew what that meant – the producers of DDT didn’t bother with that – And DDT was all the rage for awhile. (My mom knew there was DDT in it but she didn’t think it was enough to matter – until later.)

Since forever, plants and animals have migrated along with humans so Klamath Weed got transported from Europe to California. Beetles and other insects feed on it in Europe so that’s what was done in the US with great success in some places. Other transplants were not so successful for the new home,  When there are no natural predators the newcomers take over – check out the cactus in Australia.  

There are excellent sections on Dutch Elm Disease,  fire ants, and more – the war against fire ants affected many birds because birds eat worms and worms were sprayed.  Cancer gets its own chapter (“One in Every Four”). 

Carson pulls no punches. She “tells it like it is,” or was anyway. It definitely alerted the population and the marketers were up in arms (of course – remember tobacco?). The current data of Silent Spring is dated but the general warning is definitely not, so now I want to read  “Silent Spring 60 Years Later “  from Pepperdine or “The Legacy of Silent Spring” from Treehugger.  T

The book ends on a positive note pointing to the advances being made (at the time) in using natural biological remedies.  I’d love to read this again but we’ll have to see about time!  Meanwhile – it gets a 10 for substance and writing and being a classic.  

An Introduction by Linda Lear: http://www.lindalear.com/introduction_to_the_40th_anniversary_edition_of__i_silent_spring__i__by_rachel_ca_27239.htm

Also see Amazon’s sale page for a great Introduction.

Ehrman haș done it again.  I’ve read a number of Ehrman’s books,. 10 or 12 probably out of 30.  Sometimes he gets repetitious and seems to only insert one paragraph of new information in each book.  Other times it all feels new. This is a happy case of the latter.  

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End 
by Bart D Ehrman
2023 / 
Read by Robert Petcoff 7h 57m
Rating – 9 /  Christian history and studies  

The Book of Revelations in the Bible is o complex book.  I read it one time simply to say I had read it – I’d read the rest of the Bible – just not Revelations because what I’d heard scared me.   

Revelations seemed very confused to me but I didn’t examine further – just having read it was my only goal.  Ehrman, however, has studied it and drawn some conclusions as well as very interesting points of historical interest. 

He covers his own youthful indoctrination into the evangelical Christian world view (parts of this are in almost all of his books) and then gets into Revelations specifically.  What does it say? What does it mean? And how has it been interpreted down through the centuries?   

Ehrman goes from describing the author, John of Patmos and his background, to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict covering a number of prophets of the end times since, David Koresh, contemporary Evangelicals, Ronald Reagan and the environmentalists and apathetics. And then there are other apocalypses like Daniel and have visions and dreams containing wild beasts and supernatural beings.  The visions reveal Heavenly Truths,  explain human suffering and overcoming.   

Revelations is a tale of armageddon as told by John of Patmos who received a visio – this is NOT St. John the disciple and author of the Gospel John and some Epistles.  John of Patmos wrote Revelations for his own followers and there were and are many people who claimed it did not belong in the Bible.  

The book is well worth reading if you’re interested in the subject. There’s a lot of new information from Ehrman and it’s fascinating in places in addition to being as well organized as possible on this topic, and nicely written.   

I found this in the “bonus” collection from Audible so I took a chance because who knows?  I don’t usually read books which are advertised as “domestic suspense” and I don’t remember if this book was, but for the most part. that’s what it is,  Isla, a professional photographer from Australia,  arrives in the Scottish highlands, employed to take photos of the estate and family of Alban McGregor, a noted architect. 

Stranger in the Woods 
by Anni Taylor 
2018 / 
Read by  Harriet Gordon-Anderson 13h 57m
Rating: C / suspense thriller 

It turns out this family is seriously dysfunctional in part due to the abduction of a small child years ago. But Isla had no idea what she was in for – in many ways. Isla has serious health issues which include epileptic seizures for which she takes medicine. Her mother in Australia worries.  But Isla lands where she lands and has to deal with it.  

The blurb from most online retailers:  
Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she’s landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day.It sounded so perfect – a month’s assignment at the misty, sprawling Scottish Highlands property of brilliant architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica.But deep in the woods, there is a chilling playhouse. Two years ago, the McGregors’ daughter, Elodie, died after being abducted and taken there. Alban refuses to knock the playhouse down, and he keeps a picture of it on his wall.Isla senses that both Alban and Jessica are keeping terrible secrets. The closer Isla comes to getting answers about Elodie, the more the danger mounts. And with a dense cover of snow now blanketing the town, all chance of escape might already be gone.

It starts out well enough with a youngish and single but ailing photographer in the Scottish Highlands. Then it takes a turn for the suspenseful, but rather unlikely, and that gets developed through twists and turns to even more unlikely scenarios and the conclusion.

The narrator is great with the accent being just right and is probably a large part of why I finished.