Links I love

 

Spring break is coming here.  I'm thinking of bringing my kids out for an afternoon/evening and doing this, as well as spending the night. On Sunday, I'm doing this run. I did a half marathon a few weeks ago and I met my goals - under 2.5 hours and no injuries.  Here I am at the finish line!

I've been loving watching Downton Abbey - it's lovely and I wish that I had started watching it a long time ago. 

• The most popular book genre in each state.
• Novels based upon myth retellings.
• Pantry Staples from T rader Joe's.
• A guide to the Karen Read  trial. 
• Ten Vietnamese slang terms.

REVIEW - Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

 

This book was a bit of a slog to get through, not going to lie. I distinctly remember this Hurricane in live time - the pictures of people sitting on their roofs and the roof of the SuperDome being ripped off piece by piece. How we treated people and how unprepared we were were  also laid bare for the world to see. What was horrific was the story that Sherri Fink told about allegations of euthanasia in hospitals, notably Memorial Hospital. 

When the levees broke, things got bad at the hospital - it wasn't the storm so much as the flooding. The hospital lost its backup generators, which were located within the flood zone. AC and lighting and life support systems went out. Gunfire outside was heard and the parent company of the hospital wasn't very responsive to requests for help. Staffers began to believe that the most critical patients weren't going to survive at all. So two doctors - John Thiele and Anna Pou - injected patients with morphine and sedatives that rose to a lethal level.  Approximately one year later, they were charged with murder for their roles. Most of the public and the grand jury agreed that the parent company should be the ones held responsible, not the doctors, who many felt were left without a choice. 

I appreciated Fink's meticulous research - she obviously did her homework. But often, the names and actions were confusing to me and I had to keep jumping back and forth to remind myself who was who, doing what and when. It's easy to forget that this is only five days because the part of the book about the actual days seemed to drag - although that may have been the point. The book moved very, very slowly. I also wish that fink provided her own opinion about what had happened. Did one person or group of people get it right or not? 

Important read but not one I'm adding to my library.

Links I love

 

The first day of spring is here for us in the Northern Hemisphere!  

• 100 best Irish books of the 21st Century.
• 5 books becoming movies in 2025
• New Starbucks Disney mug dropping on March 31.
• What happens when there's a 14 year old professional athlete?
• Books by Kristin Hannah - I didn't  realize she had such a prolific backlist.  The Great Alone and  The Women are definitely my favorites.
• Martha Stewart has her 101st book.
• How to increase energy without caffeine.
• How to find a quality plant protein.
• 3 tips on falling asleep when you're stressed.
• John Denver almost went to space.
• Old Timey Easter traditions we don't see anymore.
• The ten most productive states in the USA.
• Gifts for readers of classic mystery books.
• 9 upcoming books for better living.
• The best biographies
• NPR's take on the new live action remake of Snow White.
• Winners of the National Book Critics Circle words are here.
• How to pick non fiction you'll like.
• Rise of romance bookstores.
• A young adult book tackles a tough topic - a parent's mental illness. 

Links I love

 

Today, I'm running this race - and hoping that I don't get hurt! It's beginning to feel a lot like spring here!

1. Non-collagen supplement helps with cognitive stuff AND skin.
2. Why does Aldi charge a quarter to use the carts?
3. Disney is changing the menu at Ohana!
4. The best selling historical fiction novels of all time.
5. Pulitzer prize winning novels.
6. The country that drinks more Guinness than Ireland.
7. How to make exercise easier.
8. Some perimenopause myths.
9. Nebula awards finalists are announced. 
10. Best Warhammer books.
11. 11 books by Irish authors that are worth reading.
12. This store is coming near to us. I was doing so w ell with no sugar.

REVIEW Blue Light

 

Bruna Lobato is a translator who began writing in English a few years ago - this is her first novel even though her English writing is everywhere: Guernica, The New Yorker to name a few. This novel is about a mother and daughter, whose names we don't learn, whose relationship is sustained over the daughter's first year in college over only Skype calls. The private college is in Vermont, which is very cold compared to where the daughter grew up in Natal, Brazil.  

Much of the novel is dialogue between daughter and mother and the things that they talk about are pretty par for the course related to college life - snow, parties, studying, homesickness, otherness and international students.  What was absolutely intriguing to me was the relationship between mother and daughter - the relationship is the main character - and how it changes from the start of the book to the end. There are definitely moments where the novel lags, but otherwise I found it charming, intimate and lovely. I wonder if the author relied upon her own experiences and journals in writing this first novel. The book's short length is relatively deceptive as the themes are complex and I would read this novel a second time to more fully appreciate the themes that are discussed. 

Well worth the read. 

Links I love

 

St. Patrick's is coming up next week but today is my birthday! If you would like to donate/buy me a coffee, please click here. My Amazon wishlist is here. Giftcards to Amazon are appreciated. There's also a wishlist here. In the meantime, we are running this event and going to dinner here.

1. The best  medieval fantasy novels.
2. Is being a bad sleeper genetic?
3. Why is coffee called A Cup of Joe?
4. Why some people wear orange and not green on St. Patrick's Day.
5. Who are the best villains in literature?
6. The new short stories written by Harper Lee.
7. The 2025 Libby winners
8. Surviving downhill skiing's rowdiest party.
9. How a measles outbreak overwhelmed a small town.
10. The Worst sugar free drinks on the Starbucks menu

Enjoy!

REVIEW: Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

 

This book was part of my TBR challenge for this year - 2 books down!!  I will not lie, I am a big Eric Larson fan, particularly since reading Devil in the White City, so any new book by him is going  to grab my attention.  This one, though, was surprisingly slow going for me. Larson's latest take on history takes on the period of time in between Lincoln's election and when Lincoln actually takes office and focuses not only on the election, but on the firing of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This 400+ page book focuses on a very short few months, but is jam packed with information. 

I was  very impressed by the source material that Larson uses - he uses journals, diaries, letters and other first hand accounts to present us with a narrative about the months leading up to the fall of Fort Sumter. My favorite parts were not necessarily the military parts of the stories, which I found very dry, but the narratives about the society people and the politicians - Lincoln, seward and Jefferson Davis in particular.  I found that the book was very well written but very long. 

What the reader should be  aware of is that Larson is not shy about providing us with his own political view on things.  It is quite obvious that he is telling us the story through the lens of January 6, which is fine as long as you go into it knowing that and are able to read critically.

Definitely enjoyable, but not my fav Larson book!