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.

Switch - How to Change things when change is hard

Chip Heath and Dan Heath have given us a social science self-help book that reads well and illuminates a lot about our behavior. The chief metaphor of the book is the emotionally driven elephant, guided by rational thought as the elephant driver. I pretty much read it all the way through without stopping. It's a list-y format which makes the concepts easy to grasp and remember. There are plenty of concrete examples of real-life cases. I loved it. The website is here, and you can find other resources in the back of the book.I recommend it strongly for anyone who loves to learn about human behavior.

Let's see what Rush and Ann have to say about this one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12143774 -

Right-wing rhetoric is bearing fruit in violence and murder.