Considering all the earthquake talk and stories about animals fleeing Yellowstone (but not really), I figured now would be a good time for a review of Simon Winchester’s A Crack in the Edge of the World: American and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. I admit that I sometimes like to read disaster nonfiction (I don’t get out enough anymore) and from the title it seems like a disaster story, but it is much more than that. Winchester in good geologist fashion gives you the entire […]
Women Behaving Badly (i.e., like men): The Scarlet Sisters
Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin were two sisters famous/infamous in American social and political circles starting in the 1870s. While most would think of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony when it comes to women’s rights, suffrage and reform, these sisters were renowned orators whose lifestyle fascinated and irritated the general public, especially men in power. They were from the wrong social class and espoused scandalous (for the time) views on sex, women, the poor and wealth. And they were linked to one […]
Half of a Yellow Sun
Admitted, I read this book solely based on the author’s brilliant TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story”. I did very little research on which of her books to read and ended up with this one because I liked the title and the cover. This book seemed like it was written for me. I do not know much of Africa and I am not one to be touched by stranger’s death on the news. Part of it is due to not being sentimental as […]
A tale of magical immigrants
A captivating, complex tale spun from the classic stories of Jewish Kabbala mysticism and Arabian mythology. Two immigrants struggle to make a life for themselves in turn of the century New York City. A classic tale, but with the twist that one immigrant is a Jinni from Syria and the other a Golem from Central Europe. The Golem has been created from clay by a Kabbalist/sorcerer to be the perfect wife to a lonely man. Unfortunately, enroute to America, her husband dies shortly after […]
On Atomic Bombs, Samba Music, and Preposterous Intelligence
Teacher. Physicist. Prankster. Ladies’ man. Incomparably brilliant human being. Though not in the same pop culture stratosphere as some of his contemporaries, Richard Feynman is nevertheless one of the titans of twentieth century science. And he’s not too shabby a storyteller, either. His memoir Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman gallivants with great aplomb across much of Feynman’s life, starting with his childhood in Queens in the depths of the Depression. As usually happens with preposterously smart folk, Feynman was a precocious child, skilled in radio […]
The More the Merrier….
I am an unabashed fan of Jon Krakauer so I was excited when this book became available at my library. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith is the story of the Lafferty brothers and the heinous murders they committed in 1984. The Lafferty brothers were Fundamentalist Mormons. They practiced polygamy and communicated directly with God via “revelations.” In 1984, they brutally murder Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month old daughter. Brenda was their sister-in-law and her daughter, their niece. Ron and Dan […]
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