The Curious stories of 43 Amazing North American Native Plants
By Tammi Hartung
A lovely little coffee table (or bathroom or bedside table) book, but not all that enjoyable for reading straight through as I did. Fully of fun and curious little bitty descriptions of the various uses of each of the plants. Lovely, but not really detailed enough to make you fully understand anything. Just enough to make you curious and wishing for more.
Hunted Girl by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
I guess I’m glad to have picked up the second book in this series, because I liked it very much. Full of action and death and destruction, especially near the ending. In this story the detective herself appears to be stalked by her husband’s killer’s family members. But it’s all mixed in with some murders and drug deals so she really can’t be sure.
Pretty good mystery. Or should I say action thriller? Nope—I’ll stick with mystery or even “police procedural” for a description.
I found this book impossible to put down—but I knew I had to make it last. So I forced it out of my greedy hands and didn’t rush through it, to the end. Still, the end came exactly when it should have, neither too early nor too late. The author is a masterful plotter! Somehow she manages to let a topic down gently, so you don’t feel robbed, but bring in a new twist seamlessly, so you don’t feel jerked around.
Okay, enough hinting around. It’s a story of an old woman with a dog who speaks to her. You immediately love them both, deeply. And the woman’s history, which she reads to her friends in a memoir writing class, is harrowing and wonderful. Alternately and both at once. And then we’re back to present time…and then back to the past, and….
And that’s all I’m going to say. One of the best novels I’ve read in a long time.
Kenneth L Feder
With a scope as wide as a continent and a wry, sudden
sense of humor, this author has written an amazing book. It tells the
prehistory and some of the modern history of the North American native peoples.
In a lot of detail, including archeological digs and records written by the
European settles, plus some native peoples’ legends and historical memories as
well.
He did not include Central or South America much—I guess that was out of scope. Too bad! I would have enjoyed reading about it. But I was still amazed at the cities and civilizations of North America that I’d never even heard about. Mound builders, yeah, I’d heard of them. But the whole Cahokia (modern name) settlement in the Midwest? It was huge! Wow.
His archaeology stuff was really fascinating to me, but I wish he’d included a little more of the genetic analysis results that are helping to explain the connections and divergences between populations. The food and agriculture sections are good, but I wanted more.
Still, a fabulous work of scholarship. And some humor.
Blisters, Bears and Bliss
A Pacific Crest Trail Memoir
by Yonatam 'Raven' Weiss
What a disappointment! I thought it was a memoir or a travel log. But not at all. It was, as the reviewer prior to me wrote very succinctly,
“non-stop rant…practically yelling at the reader over and over again to stop conforming to society and go on a thru-hike. He found around 100 different ways of phrasing the exact same thing over and over and over again.”
I couldn’t say it better myself. Luckily I’m quitting before wasting any more time on it.
