This Will Make You Smarter

A collection of very short essays edited by John Brockman, this book contains ideas from some of the most interesting thinkers of our time, such as Richard Dawkins, Craig Venter, Lisa Randall, and many others. It's great for keeping in the bathroom, or by the bed when you want something fast and easy to absorb. Even though the essays are short, the ideas are often deep and provocative.

Stupid White Men

I'm going through my shelves looking for books to get rid of. It's  painful, but necessary if I don't want my house to be featured on some upcoming Hoarders show. Stupid White Men is classic Michael Moore. It's loaded with great information, surprising stuff that's well documented. I keep thinking I should do something with this, but by now it's almost old news. Unfortunately it's news that nobody seems to care about, but that's another ball of wax. I respect Michael Moore so much. I just wish he were more disciplined and focused. All his movies and books are just a bit too long and scattered. We can't really latch on to one idea and get fired up about it. There are so many ideas in each opus he puts out.
Stupid White Men gathers really important information about the illegal election shenanigans that placed George W Bush in the highest seat of power. It details all the connections to big oil in his coven of advisers. It lays out details of just how screwed up our country was in 2001, and damn if we aren't worse off now.
But I'm going to say goodbye to Stupid White Men. It's all important stuff, but I need to make room for new stuff to get upset about.

Mistletoe Man

Susan Wittig Albert

China Bayles, our protagonist is dealing with worries about the unusual behavior of her friend Ruby,  a shortage of mistletoe, and the defection of her cook, the British Mrs. Kendall.Meanwhile she needs to come up with tea food for the annual Christmas Tour. On her way out to the farm where she discovers the Mistletoe man is dead, she visits with the Sisters who own the neighboring flower farm, and who become the prime suspects for murder.

The Tricking of Freya

Christina Sunley

A novel that's good enough to read all the way through but not re-read. It took me awhile to get fully into it and I had to skip ahead to keep my interest going. I enjoyed the Icelandic culture, and the mystery of the crazy aunt and the protagonist's relationship to her.

The Scarpetta Factor

Patricia Cornwall

I loved the Kay Scarpetta series until they started getting to dark, too fantastical. Kay was a great character but I didn't feel much empathy or connection with her in this book. Her relationship with Benton, back from the dead, feels jury-rigged, not real. The amazing superhuman niece, Lucy, is starting to get a little out of control, but this is not well -developed or  believable. I paid 50cents for the book at the library sale, and enjoyed reading this story but glad I didn't pay more for it.

One Second After, by William R. Forstchen

I just finished reading an incredibly depressing novel about western North Carolina in the post apocalypse world. In this world an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) released from a high altitude nuclear detonation destroys all our computer controlled machinery and infrastructure. To summarize: society breaks down, people turn into beasts (except the protagonist) and most everyone dies. The really depressing thing is that the danger of an EMP is not just hypothetical. Evidently it's a real possibility. We really do need to invest in a modern, safer, energy grid. We need a system in which every household can generate a minimal amount of electricity to keep functional in case of strikes against our grid. We need a system that is diversified, and efficient, and localized as well as centralized. It's creepy to realize how dependent we are on modern technology, and how vulnerable our technology really is. 

Born to Run

A hidden tribe, superathletes, and the greatest race the world has never seen.
It's pretty riveting. Kind of a Carlos Castenada flavor to it, starts out like some secret shaman magic woo, but fortunately that part never develops further. It has some culture, the culture of the near stone age Mexican tribe, juxtaposed along side of the culture of the ultramarathon athletes. There's a little biology, a little anthropology, a little sports  history, and a pretty good narrative. All in all a good read.