The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
Ben Mezrich writes books by looking at things most of society didn’t notice. His book on how Facebook starter The Accidental Billionaires or his one on how MIT ruled poker tables at casinos Bring Down The House made us aware of the stories we’d missed. When I heard he was taking on unexplained phenomena in a new book I went looking. He’s never part of the world he writes about but he gets to know it as an outsider then explains it to us, the other outsiders. I’ll admit I’m not an outsider on reading about and pondering the unexplained. So the things in The 37th Parallel didn’t shock or surprise me. This time I wanted to see how he treated the topic. In the end it was how he treated his subject that intrigued me more as a reader.
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
I think those of us who love books come with an affinity to maps too. (more…)
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
I enjoy tales about characters. It’s because I grew up among story tellers and characters. My mother Sylvia Bright has quite a following on several Facebook groups where she tells the tales of the place I grew up Greeneville, Tennessee. Thus I enjoy books that center on every day interesting people met in travels or while doing business. This book is just one of those. Winton Porter owned a backpacking shop and hostel. It is the only one that actually straddles the Appalachian Trail. So if you desire to walk the trail from one end to the other you will walk through that breezeway.
I have to admit I was on the waiting list for this book so long I gave up and got the audiobook. This is a biography of a child born in the Gilded Age to a family as wealthy as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, or Astors. Her father W. A. Clark was a contemporary of them all. Huguette Clark was the daughter of W.A. and his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle. She was raised in the Clark mansion in New York City that took up a whole city block. However upon the death of her father she and her mother moved to apartments on 5th Avenue. Once her mother died, Huguette stayed there until she was taken to hospital on a stretcher in 1991 and there she should live for the next twenty years until her death. Along the way she was an interesting character given to childlike indulgences (dolls, dollhouses) and reclusiveness. Her life was filled with the best of the best – master art works on the walls, mansions not visited for decades stood at 48 hour readiness should she want to appear. She owned jewels that would stun Tiffanys, had not just one but two Stradivarius violins and more. Her life saw the Empire State Building go up where the Astor house once stood and the World Trade Center towers come down in 2001. The history seen and owned by her is astounding. Yet I don’t think she was ever happy nor do I think I would have particularly liked her as a person. BUT I do not think she deserved the treatment she got in her old age.
I put this on my to-read list (again it’s over 300 books!) after reading her Wicked Plants. I chose this as my reentry into non-fiction reading partly because how much I enjoyed Wicked Plants. I will say I enjoyed this book about the fruits, woods, spices, and herbs that make up our alcoholic beverages. However, I did not enjoy it as much a Wicked Plants. It’s not the author’s fault I think but rather my inability to drink any more. I was left wanting to know what a liquor made from violets taste like over crushed ice mixed with seltzer on a hot day in France. How a Pimm’s Cup is refreshing when ruling India while trying act like I’m in Britain. How beer made with green hops taste different from the beer I know. But alas I was left with the images and descriptions only if I want to keep taking my medications. However I do have a son and husband who drink so who knows I might get to watch too. If not trust me some character somewhere in my writings will know that violet liquor and LOVE it.
After a few heavy books – neurosurgeon, corporate politics, and climbing Mt. Everest I was ready for a light read. I picked Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews. I didn’t know it was the second of a series but the premise intrigued me. Southern socialite has her money swindled in a sweetheart scam leaving her only a seedy motel. She tries to put her life back together. As she is doing so she learns where the con-man is and goes to con her money back from him with a little help from her friends. Fun huh? It was!, definitely a beach blanket read of the first class chick lit type, nothing heavy here.
How I found this book is by a podcast from Australia. First let me confess, I love the unexplained/unsolved/mysterious of the world from tales of ghosts to UFO to unsolved murders I’m up to hear the story. One of the ways I regularly feed this is by listening to podcasts. Now, Audible Books is a sponsor of many podcasts. One particular one I enjoy regularly is Mysterious Universe. During the plug for Audible the two hosts often recommend books they have enjoyed, it was here I learned of Wicked Plants. I will never eye a plant the same again.
Wicked Plants is non-fiction that I would say falls into what I call readable non-fiction. Think of two of my favorite authors – Mary Roach and Bill Bryson – their non-fiction books are humorous, informative, and enjoyable. This one fall right in there with those and I will be looking for other titles by Amy Stewart. In this book she takes each type of ‘wicked’ plant (plants that can harm you) goes through the bad boys of that type, tells what they do to you, give you a few interesting tales to hang the facts onto in your memory, then names familiar relatives of the bad boy. For example – Poison Ivy gives you a rash. She explains how this works, why some are barely sensitive and others are ‘exquisitely” sensitive, and then names cashew nuts and mangoes as familiar family members. BUT did you know that only the nut of cashews won’t give you the rash? She explains how you get the delicious nut from a hull and plant that is wicked. Also she tells tales of the exquisitely sensitive to poison ivy that ate the mango. It’s not pretty and that cherry orange fruit and smile shaped nut will never look the same to you. I learned there are plants whose ripe seed pods explode with such force that being struck by is seed is like being shot by a .22 gun. Yes she explains how a weed killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother and just what berries look like bilberries but eating just one will kill you – imagine the family that made them into a pie!
I found myself marking passages and taking notes for use of plants in future plot lines. Oh the uses of the suicide plant in a devious murder… maybe a poison that modern investigators would not think to look for unless the death was suspicious. The story possibilities whirled in my mind. This is a book I will revisit when a wicked character has to clandestinely kill someone or a sharp detective needs a break on difficult case. Also if I’m a fretting mom about what berry did my pet just eat? I can’t tell how many times I cringed remembering my son asking if a berry of a plant I didn’t know in his grandparent’s neighbor’s yard was poisonous. I said I didn’t know. He said “I sure hope not because I just ate one on a dare.” (Yes my insides still scream at that one) Turns out it must not have been as he’s still around and doing well.
This is a book I would wholeheartedly recommend to friends who like me love information. When I closed it I knew it was one that I will always keep and enjoy reading again some day to discover another tidbit that didn’t stick this time. However my strolls through gardens or walks in the woods will never be the same as I eye the possibly wicked greenery around me. You never know when a plant might shoot you or literally hook you causing pain for life!
Mary Louise Eklund 