Yep, Still Alive

Yes, I'm alive. And reading. This has been a very busy month. I will write about my travels in the next blog. I just need to get all this reading out of my brain. Help me, I'm caught in a reading frenzy. Not so much a frenzy. I've been traveling and reading keeps me grounded.

First is This is Your Brain on Music. I was talking to Karen about this. I've been trying to read this for a while. It is a good book. It is just not what I needed to be reading. Lots of cerebelum and tempo. We decided that it would be nice if they would have included real music in this while I was listening. But that would have been a different book. What I learned is that music is a part of every person's life. Who knew?

Adrian did NOT like The Second Perimeter. It was not very deep.Typical spy stuff. But I did finish it. For those who lose ourselves in mindless plotlines, it fulfilled it's purpose.

Satan's Circus is non-fiction about the cops in New York City during the turn of the century. Did you know they were corrupt? Yep, it's true. The book was good for describing a time and place. It's always good to get a better sense of what the city was like before it became civilized. Worst part was the execution of the cop who got caught in the storm. Yuck. Good to read if you think execution is a good thing.

A Ball, A Dog, and a Monkey sounds like a joke. It was not. It's about America and space after the Russian's launched Sputnik in 1957. I remember 1957. I remember the cover of life magazine that was promising a technological miracle that year. I wish I could see it to know what really came true. This is very well written. Fun to read and follow along with the politician's panic and hubris. All the push toward science paid off for my family. I don't know that science education was as big before then. It sure was when I was in school. I remember a LOT of incidents from this book.

Tom told us about this last book, A Dirty Job. So funny. I can't write some of the funniest lines. This Beta Male loses his wife in the first few pages. He is left with a daughter and a mission. The mission is to retrieve Soul Vessels from the newly- or about-to-be-departed. He takes his dear daughter, Sophie, along for the ride. Her and all his interesting employees (in a second hand store, not in retrieving souls.) It took a chapter or two to get to the "can't put it down" stage. Good writing. Strange plot. Pick of the litter.