Not a Very Fertile One . . .

I really looked forward to this book. I'd read one other with the same premise (dead people speaking about their lives from the grave) and it was rife with community secrets and a long-ago mystery that gradually crystallized to clarity. I'd hoped for the same. Um, no. I had several problems with this book.

1. At times it just felt like an outlet for the author's stream of consciousness. Ugh.

2. The dead people curiously all spoke with the same "voice". Wouldn't that have been corrected at a 5th grade level or so?

3. There was really no closure of the circle of all the stories. Just meandering. He's not that good of a writer for that to be satisfying.

Suffice it to say I won't be looking for other books by this author. Or rather, I will, in order to avoid reading them.

Wait, What?

Lucy Cooke could write about taking out the trash and I'd read it. And enjoy it. So no big surprised that her torpedo of a book was a rollicking good read and educational to boot. Who knew there were "mean girl" animals? And that some species will morph between male and female depending on the need at the time? And what about female dominated species--particular some who engage in a little girl-on-girl action to break the ice? This book will turn the animal knowledge you thought you had on its head, and then spin you around for good measure. It gave me many spiderweb moments, in traveling from this fact, to that premise, to that speculation that maybe, all along, we've been sold a bill of goods about what's "normal" and what's not. It made me wonder about human evolution, and whether or not we're designed to be nice, or rather, hard-wired to be cruel, and it definitely led me to consider research, and the undeclared biases of the folks in the white coats. A thought-provoking, light-hearted, yet meaty book--I highly recommend it.

Brave, Strong and Patient

I bought this book because it was published in 1861 and written by a woman who was a former slave. Honestly, I thought the writing style would be a little bogged down like lots of books written in that time, but it wasn't. I was transported to her life, her place, her horrors. I could not believe the lengths to which this woman went to escape her lecherous "owner", and to ultimately secure her freedom. Harriet is a hero, an inspiration, and a testament to the ability of the human mind to transcend hardships physical and mental if one is sufficiently motivated. I even love the cover photograph of Harriet, with a wry little smile, seemingly saying, "I won.".