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Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
This book has already had an impact. This morning I tried to run, like a kid might, deliberately running on random patterns of leaves/ stones /fallen branches, varying my speed, turning, twisting, trying to keep it interesting, all while wearing gardening boots, trying to wake up tiny muscles in my feet and legs. This was after a short jog where my ( Read more... ) -
Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art and Wild
Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art by Christopher Moore starts out witty but devolves into sexual farce. Great premise: The color Blue is a muse (with a pimp) who steals paintings and occasionally kills so she (and he) can live forever. I loved reading about the Montmartre, its Impressionists congregating around a bakery to share stories and score cheap ( Read more... ) -
Defending Jacob by William Landay
A prominent DA begins work on a heartbreaking case- dead teenager-- only to learn his son is the prime suspect. While fluffier and more courtroom drama than We Need to Talk About Kevin, it shares certain themes: how well can you know your yourself, your family, your neighbors; does technology enable psychotic behavior; what should you do if someone ( Read more... ) -
Readings
Readings:
YA : Charlie Bone - Children of the Red King series (8) by Jenny Nimmo. Pretty awful Harry Potter clone. Terrible, evil headmaster and son unbelievably kill and abduct students and it's up to the good kid to save everybody, his horrible, evil relatives notwithstanding. Hey, I was down to the dregs of a YA lit collection.
Between the Lines ( Read more... ) -
Voter Turnout
Where I cast my absentee ballot, out of the 10,523 registered voters in Mariposa County. only 4,940 (46.94%) voted. This is pretty typical for the whole country. Imagine if each of the 117million eligible voters who didn't bother was charged a $175 fine for not voting, like here in Belgium-- the US government could have raised $20,475,000,000.00 ( Read more... ) -
My Facebook Page is the Civil War
People watching America right now can see that the Civil War isn't dead at all, it's raging on FB pages everywhere. Replace yankees and confederates with democrats and the republicans and reboot. On my page, it's Tea Party vs Traitors: If you don't Like this post about our Troops, or kicking the UN election observers out of the US, or the one about ( Read more... ) -
Me and Mrs Jones
"Me and Mrs Jones" stars Sara Alexander, the blonde from Coupling, and Robert Sheehan, the star what done broke out of Misfits and summarily disappeared after an embarrassing run in Playboy of the Western World at the Old Vic. It's bad. It's supposed to be a romcom between a mature 20's guy and an immature 40's woman with 2 kids, an estranged ( Read more... ) -
His Majesty's Dragon series (1-7/9) by Naomi Novik
I've been reading an alternate history fantasy series in which dragons fight in the Napoleonic wars. All battles, like Trafalgar, are as accurately depicted as possible, but now Improved! With dragons! It's written by Naomi Novik, a strategy-loving nerd (she named her daughter 'Evidence,' ferchrissakes) writing in archaic British. It's a series I ( Read more... ) -
The Forest of Hands and Teeth YA trilogy
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
The Dead-Tossed Waves
The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan
I thought I'd read the first few sentences for giggles-- I'm not a zombie or horror fan-- and then I got swept under. The authenticity of the first person narrative sucked me in. We meet a young woman in a Christian enclave trying to wrest control of her ( Read more... ) -
Sleepless While Dad Saves World
My dad was up til about 4 am last night finalizing grant proposals due at 6 am. The calls to and from cohorts kept jolting me out of dreamland. Luckily I know he's saving the world so I don't mind so much. But tiiiiiired. Even Jayne, aka "the physics muse," is tired.