This Will Kill You - HP Newquist and Rich Maloof

Sub-title: A guide to the ways in which we go

A humorous and morbid look at the many ways humans die, from disease to accident to the absurd.  The authors use a template describing how each way kills, the cause of death, science of it, time, risk, lethality, stats, notable victims and horror factor.

Published: 2009  Read: November 2018  Genre: Non-fiction

Joy Enough - Sarah McColl

This was a book written from grief, a slow unfolding of the relationship between a dying mother and daughter and that daughter and her own soon to be divorced husband.  I got an advanced copy at the Nashville Festival of Books 2018.  It is reflective and dreamlike, struggling to stay afloat while the anchors of her life a set adrift.

Quotes: 

"Our marriage, in the end, had echoed with loneliness.  How many times had we been restaurant silent, the couple that dines wordlessly, then beams up into the server's face at the offer of more water and dessert?  To feel the absence of affection between us where once there had been so much, florid and overflowing - that was lonely.  This was just being alone."

Published:  2018  Read: November 2018  Genre: Memoir

The Radium Girls - Kate Moore

Sub-title:  The dark story of America's shining women

I read this for my Ladies of the Club book group..over 25 years we've been meeting!

The true story of the young teenagers and women who painted luminous dials with paint brushes they "pointed" by "lipping" - wetting them with their mouths.  The were poisoned by the radium powder used and suffered horrendous illness and disfigurations and death while their employer denied any ill effects.  Their case led to worker's rights legislation.  A powerful read.

Published: 2017  Read: November 2018  Genre: History

The Perfect Girlfriend - Karen Hamilton

Juliette is obsessed with her former boyfriend Nate, convinced he will return and if not, determined to convince him. A creepy but compelling read of someone who can't let go and move on. 

Published:  2019  Read: November 2018  Genre: Fiction

Upstate - James Wood

Picked this up in the library on the New listings shelf.  A quiet, thoughtful story of a father and his daughters dealing with the fall out of his long ago divorce from their now deceased mother.

Quotes:

[comment on nursing home] "It was all pretty good, or as good as it can be when one's whole life has been reduced to souvenirs of selfhood."

"Wel, religious is just someone else's definition of what is sacred"

"You're only as good as your suppliers, all the way down the chain.  Sort out who supplies you, find the people you can really trust, and that's half of the work done there." 

 

Published: 2018  Read: November 2018   Genre: fiction

A Girl's Guide to Missles - Karen Piper

Sub-title:  Growing Up in America's Secret Desert

This was a fun read. The author grew up in China Lake, a secret, restricted military installation where missiles were built, like the Sidewinder.  It's an other worldly childhood, growing up and working in a town where everyone and everything is shrouded in confidentiality.  Entertaining, chilling and touching.  I got this as an advanced copy at the Nashville Festival of Books 2018.

Quotes:

[talking about the recruitment to Amway by Dick DeVos and the use of religious analogies] "His daughter-in-law, Betsy DeVos, would become US Secretary of Education and push for funding schools that use Accelerated Christian Education in order to 'advance God's Kingdom' ."

[When her sister goes into a coma after childbirth] "My sister held my memories in her brain.  Even though she fought with me about what had or had not happened, without the fighting, no one would even care about those memories, what was true or unture, what was mine and what was hers."

 Published:  2018  Read: October 2018  Genre: Memoir

Fear - Bob Woodward

Yes, I read this, I was given it as a gift.  My first impression is that it was hastily written, not really a story but a series of interviews and research strung together in a sort of chronological order.  I liked the explanation and background on several policy issues, e.g., Korea, Afghanistan, Iran and immigration.  The personality of Trump was not a surprise; my takeaway is that he isn't deliberately malicious, his narcissism and ego supersedes any larger thought.  Not recommended.


Published: 2018  Read: October 2018  Genre: Non-fiction, politics

A Year by the Sea - Joan Anderson

Sub-title: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman

My sister recommended this story and it was well worth the read.  A middle aged empty nester decides to finally embrace her own life.  She leaves her husband to live by the ocean in the NorthEast alone to ponder what she really wants out of life and who she is. 


Published:  1999  Read: October 2018  Genre: Memoir

Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann

Sub-title - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

This book was recommended to me by a newsman who found it a compelling read and I agree.
The Osage Indians were given reservation land in Oklahoma which later was found to have huge oil reserves underground.  The tribe had wisely preserved their rights to the oil and for a period of time in ?? were some of the richest people in America.  All that wealth brought out the worst in fortune seekers.  White men came to Oklahoma to marry tribal members and a plot unfolds in the story on how they resorted to murder to claim riches. 

It is also the story of the beginning of the FBI and the men who pursued the criminals.  Great read.

Published:  2017  Read:  October 2018  Genre: History

Mrs Keppel and her Daughter - Diana Souhami

I picked this up on our wanderings in Alaska this past summer.  It's the story of Alice Edmonstone Keppel and her daughter, Violet Keppel Trefusis.  Alice was the mistress of King Edward VII, the great grandfather of the current Queen Elizabeth.  In an interesting twist, Alice's other daughter, Sonia, is the grandmother of Camilla, the mistress (and now wife) of Queen Elizabeth's son, Charles. 

It was valuable to me as an example of the Victorian era and the mores of that society.  Anglophiles would enjoy.

Published:   Read: September 2018  Genre: Biography