Face to Face with Grizzlies by Joel Sartore

After finishing The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz on September 30th, I started Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  I took a little break from Hamilton (it's a long book) and read 2 books The Husband picked up at the library by a National Geographic photographer I follow in Instagram - Joel Sartore.  I'm not certain how I came to follow Joel, but it probably is because I follow National Geographic, he's one of those photographers, and I often explore the feeds of the photographers whose work National Geo features.  His photographs are amazing.  As a surprise, The Husband brought home "Face to Face with Grizzlies" for me to read.  I started and finished this on November 7.

The target audience for this book is kids - but it was fun to read a little about bears and see some of Joel's amazing pictures.  It is informational (I learned that Grizzly bears and Brown bears are the same species - Ursus arctos), easy to read - lots of pictures, large type, tells us about habits of bears, their habitats, diets, and what to do to help save bears.  And he tells a story about how he came face to face with a bear and lived to tell the tale.

Apparently the fishing bears or Brooks Falls, Alaska are famous and people gather there to photograph them fishing for salmon.  Joel was there in July surrounded by people and bears.  Late in the day he was heading back to his campsite about a mile away.  Within seconds of his walk, he encountered a large female bear with two cubs.  The bear saw Joel and immediately she "bounded down the hill, head down, mouth foaming.  She was braced, ready to spring.  She didn't roar; her mouth was closed.  Her stare was intense.  They tell you not to run if a grizzly charges you.  That was not a problem for me.  I didn't remember that I even had legs at that point.  I lowered my eyes, apologized softly, and slowly backed up.  The standoff lasted only ten seconds or so.  She shorted and trotted back up the hill."

This was a cute book, definitely suited for kids - informative, great pictures, and a nice conservation message.

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

On a random Sunday when the Husband and I were on our regular weekly pilgrimage to Costco, we did our usual swing by the book section to see if anything caught our eye.  We often look at what's out to make our library book list then request them of our local library (best thing ever!).  This book caught my eye.  The Husband asked if I had read the other books in this series, indeed I have, and I watched the original movies in Swedish with English subtitles - streamed from Netflix on my computer.  I don't remember if I saw the English-language movies.  I normally don't like to read my movies - I opt for films in English.  But since the English-language movies hadn't been made yet, and I was so eager to see them, I watched/read the movies.  They were fantastic.

When we saw this book at Costco, I was intrigued and wanted to know if this was the "next" one in the series.  Indeed, it is.  Except it isn't by the original author, Stieg Larsson, but rather by David Lagercrantz.  I like continuity in series books, but I'm not one to not read a book in the series if it is by a different author, especially if the original author has passed.

So, the Husband requested this for me from our local library, and I started it on September 5th and finished it on September 30th.

I hadn't read the synopsis or any reviews, I just dug right in.  It started a little slow, but once it picked up, it was like a kick in the head from Lisbeth Salander herself.  The action was awesome, I was invested in the characters, and in the last 100 pages or so, I couldn't put it down.  The day I finished it was a Saturday.  I usually get up around 8am, have a quick breakfast and watch a show on the DVR, then rush off to work out with my trainer for an hour.  On September 30th, I got up at my normal time, read during breakfast, and when I got home, continued reading until I finished the book.  Lisbeth lent me some of her bad-assness during my training session.  I was boxing that day, and channeled Lisbeth.  It was fun!

Lagercrantz paints a good picture of life for Mikael.  Millennium is a pickle and the press for some reason is on Mikael's ass, and in typical Nordic form, there is a storm raging outside.  We come to learn more about Millennium's pickle and about a young autistic boy.  Lisbeth is her usual brooding, loner-self who is on a hacking tirade.  Somehow all of these things collide and in typical form, the shit hits the fan.  There are guns, car chases, seductresses, hit-men, hackers, government employees, sexual encounters, artistic moments, mathematical equations, and more.

I loved it.  There is another book out that follows this - the Husband already has us on the list for it from the library.  Woo hoo!

The book starts slow, but ends with a thrill.

What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

What If this or that happened?  What are the consequences?  If you have an active imagination and you like to ask "what if" - this is the book for you.  I started this on August 10 and finished it on September 2.

I love a book that starts with a disclaimer!

"Do not try any of this at home.  The author of this book is an Internet cartoonist, not a health or safety expert.  He likes it when things catch on fire or explode, which means he does not have your best interests in mind.  The publisher and the author disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects resulting, directly or indirectly, from information contained in this book."

So, yeah.  Don't try the things in this book, no matter how much you might want to.  As a lifelong learner, an avid reader, and being curious by nature, this book was right up my alley.  I like the absurd, the off-kilter, the super random shit, and I like to know what would happen if... and why.

Some of the absurd questions that Munroe answers, often with hilarious cartoons accompanying the text are:

• What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation?  How long could I stay safely at the surface?
• Bottom line - you'll probably be ok as long as you don't dive to the bottom or pick up anything

• One of my faves:  What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element?
• Bottom line - very, very bad things would happen.  "Unfortunately for our project, the transuranic elements don't vanish quietly.  They decay radioactively.  And most of them decay into things that also decay.  A cube of any of the highest-numbered elements would decay within seconds, releasing a tremendous amount of energy... It wouldn't be a chain reaction - just a reaction.  It would happen all at once.  The flood of energy would instantly turn you - and the rest of the periodic table - to plasma."

• If you suddenly began rising steadily at 1 foot per second, how exactly would you die?  Would you freeze or suffocate first?  Or something else?
• For you chefs out there, from what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?
• For you road warriors, which US state is actually flown over the most?  Eager for the answer - it's Virginia.
• What would happen to the Earth if the Sun suddenly switched off?  
• Some good things like reduced solar flares, improved satellite service, better astronomy (it's darker, duh), cheaper trade (no more time zones).  And, some bad things - we'd all freeze and die.
• And for you baseball fans: What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball at 90% the speed of light?
• You guessed it - very bad things would happen.  I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the stadium where this happens.

This book is hilariously entertaining, and chock full of quite interesting and accurate science.

If you want to be entertained and learn something, definitely read this book!  And enthusiastic two thumbs up!

And, if you like this, you might want to check out The Thing Explainer.

This is from "A mole of moles" - I love anything having to do with animals, especially strange animals

This is from "High Throw" - I love anything about balls and Giraffes

River Monsters by Jeremy Wade

I can't say for certain why it is that the TV show on Animal Planet, River Monsters, fascinates me, but it does.  I'm not a fisherperson.  I've been fishing, when I was little.  I think it was with my older brother's Boy Scouts troop, and apparently all of the boys were too squeamish to clean their fish, and I wasn't.  I think it was at a lake in SoCal near where I grew up that was stocked with fish, so it was pretty much a given that we'd all catch fish.  Can't say that I've ever fished since then.

But for some reason, I absolutely love the show River Monsters.  It may be because I'm an adventurer at heart, and curious by nature.  It may be because I like to tread light on this Earth we live on, and Jeremy Wade does too, and he isn't out to sport fish and catch and kill everything he finds.  He's a catch and release fisherman, I respect that.  See what you can get, take a look, then let it go.  I was sad to learn that the show is ending this season.  

I was talking with my dad on one of our regular Tuesday & Thursday morning on the way to work phone conversations, and somehow we were talking about River Monsters and how I love the show.  He said he liked the book too.  I had to remind him that I was talking about the TV show.  He was insistent that there was a book.  I looked it up, and lo and behold, it is a book too!  I had to have it.  So, thanks to the husband and his magical Amazon Prime account, I had the book in hand a few days later.  I couldn't wait to read it.  I started this on June 30th and finished it on August 8th.

Jeremy Wade is a pretty interesting man.  His show came about from a lot of perseverance and drive, and by not giving up.  In this book, he tells the tale of how River Monsters came to be, and he goes on to talk about some of the most interesting, challenging, and crazy expeditions and catches.

In the show as in this book, Jeremy Wade researches possible culprits for the mysteries he's trying to solve.  He then sets out to find out if his hypothesis is sound and true by visiting mostly remote and scary places and fishing.  A lot of fishing.  

I think the book was so interesting for me because I can remember the TV show episode that went with most of the monsters he included in his book.  The book brought a new dimension to what I saw and learned from the show.

This is one instance where the show was equally as good as the book!  Such a rarity.

All of the monsters he chronicles and searches for are pretty scary - piranhas, goliath tigerfish, wels arapaima, catfish, gars, eels, electric eels, rays, sharks - some pretty scary shit is lurking below.

This book was well written, easy to understand, and fascinating.  Water covers 71% of the Earth.  That's a lot.  In terms of what we know about what's down there, we basically know nothing.  The crazy creatures Jeremy Wade catches support that thought.  He's caught fish that were believed to be extinct, and found creatures of gigantic proportions. 

There's also an obvious message of conservation throughout.  In addition to us knowing nothing, many don't care - they employ drastic measures to catch fish that cause the death and destruction of entire ecosystems.  

"In parts of India they fish with dynamite that has been acquired from road-maintenance teams.  Fish concentrate in pools where only a couple of sticks, in a small river, can kill everything.  Then there's the electro-fishing, using wires hooked up to power lines and run down to the water - an insanely dangerous method and indicative of a level of desperation that I, for one, can scarcely comprehend."

"Killing what you fear will achieve nothing.  In fact, this can even rebound on us - as it undoubtedly will if they ever try to wipe out the Breede River bull sharks.  And the same goes for the casual killing of our fellow creatures that we are doing all the time through our now-untenable belief that our security is assured through ever-increasing consumption.  Now, more than at any time in the past, the challenge facing every one of us is to learn to coexist with other life.  Because the day the last monster dies is the day the river dies too.  And when that happens, we're not far behind."

Grim, yes.  But true.  Sustainability, folks, that's where it's at.  Be curious, tread lightly, this is the only Earth we have.

Against All Enemies by Tom Clancy (with Peter Telep)

Oh, Tom Clancy, you weave an ever-so-complicated tale.  After finishing Bite Me, I started reading Against All Enemies on May 21st and finished it on June 29th.  Like many Clancy novels, this isn't a short book.  It is 709 pages of action-packed reading material.

If you've never read a Clancy book before here are a few things to note:  

• The book may seem disjointed.  Clancy writes complicated books with many small sub-stories that come together.  It can be a little tough to keep everything straight and remember how everything is intertwined.  That's ok.  He usually wraps everything up nicely in the last 100 pages or so. 
• There is a lot going on in the book.  Yes, there is.  Just go with it. 
• It is long.  Again, yes.  The book is long.  You'll enjoy it (probably).  Just keep reading. 
• The book sort of seems real.  Yes, it does.  Clancy writes realistic books that are well-researched.

Going into any Clancy book - know that it may seem confusing, it's long, there's a lot going on - that's his style and genre.  You'll either like it or not.  I really like it.  The Husband doesn't.  The Husband's dad actually gave me this book after he read it.  He and I have similar taste in some books, and he and The Husband have another similar taste in books.  You can have more than one taste.  That's the beauty of books - they are so diverse - and there is bound to be something out there that whets your appetite!

Back to Against All Enemies.  How do I even begin?  What came first - the chicken or the egg?  Who knows, but they both exist.  This book makes a tasty omelette out of the Mexican drug cartels, Middle-East terrorists, Guatemalan death squads, the alphabet soup of federal agencies (FBI, CIA, DEA, boarder patrol, and...), Navy SEALs, and more.  It seems like everything imaginable comes into the mix in this one.

One of the main characters in this book is ex-Navy SEAL Max Moore - he's the thread that is a constant throughout the whole book.  It starts and ends with him.  We experience many intense situations in present time and in Moore's past that help us understand who he is and what motivates him.  Another thread that is present throughout is a question that Moore was asked by a Middle Eastern man who was providing information to him.  This man asked Moore what the most difficult thing he has ever done in his life.  It is a question that Moore struggles with throughout the book.  

     "...So, in the name of brotherhood... what is the most difficult thing you have ever done in your life?"

      "I don't think I've ever faced that question before."

     "Are you afraid to tell me?"

     "I'm not afraid, I'm just..."

     "You don't want to look at it.  You've hidden it away."

     Moore gasped, and he was unsure if he could maintain his gaze on Wazir.  "We've all done many difficult things."

     "I need the most difficult.  Do you want me to go first?"

     Moore nodded.

     "I yearned to make my father proud.  I wanted to be a good son."

     "And how was that difficult?"

     Wazir raised his stump.  "I got hurt early in the war, and with that the paternal glow of pride, each time I entered the room, was quenched from my father's gaze.  His son was a cripple now, no longer a warrior.  It was never the same with him after that.  And there was nothing harder for me to do than make him proud."

      ... Moore's eyes began to burn - because he knew that the old man was going to press him again.  He did.

     "The hardest thing?"

     "Moore glanced away.  "I'm sorry.  I can't look in there."

     The old man sat quietly, sipping on his tea, letting the silence reclaim the room, while Moore forced his thoughts onto deep, dark waves of nothing.  And then he looked up.  "I guess if I don't tell you, you won't help me."

     "If you told me too quickly, I wouldn't believe you.  I understand that the pain is so great that you can't talk.  I know this pain.  And I will help you.  I must help you."

     "I just... I once made a decision that to this day I'm not sure was the right one.  Every time I think about it I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Through flashbacks of his SEAL training and missions we learn of some of the difficult things that Moore has been through, and we might just learn what that one thing makes him feel like he's going to throw up.

I like Clancy's books because he writes his characters very believably - they seem like real, complicated, complex, messed-up people - like all of us.  Everyone has problems, failures, challenges, successes, regrets, wants, desires, thoughts, happiness, sadness, frustration.  Not everything works out for every one.

I can't remember the last Clancy book I read - maybe Rainbow Six - and that was many years ago.  It was nice to pick up another Clancy book and really like it.  If you're a fan of Clancy or this genre, you'll probably like this book.

Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

So, after reading #1 and #2 in this series, I started #3 - Bite Me: A Love Story - shortly after I finished You Suck in the early part of May, and finished toward the end of May.  The Husband was able to get this from the library for me which still perplexes me that they would have the 3rd book in the series but not the first 2.

This book was really funny.  Of course, it picked up where the other left off.  Bite Me was a little more ridiculous than the first two, but hey, it's a vampire book, it has to be a little bit ridiculous, right?  Tommy and Jody are still vampires but are trapped (I won't tell you where), and our old faithful goth-girl-extraordinaire is at the helm leading the way.  The problem of the day in this book - vampire cats.  Chet, the homeless man's extremely large cat, is now a vampire (a catpire, a vampcat, a vampirat?) whatever, but Chet is a creature of the night and has made hoards of other cat vampires that are terrorizing the City.

During a precarious vamp-cat fight we meet an old ninja who decimates many vamp cats with his ninja sword.  Then he disappears.  Abby meets Foo-Dog, a character who made a brief appearance in the first two books.  She falls deeply for Foo-Dog and they become a thing.

Like the first two books, this one is a race to stay alive in a world of vampires and now vampire cats.  I have to say that Abby's narration was a little annoying, she was a little too valley-girl-ish - a young girl from SF wouldn't completely talk the way she does (it was a little too LA-ish), and I'm not sure a goth girl anywhere would talk that way.  But maybe that's just a comedic tool that Moore used to create some kind of tension or contradiction in her character?  Don't know, but it was a little annoying.

I loved the parts with the old vamp-cat-killing ninja - I can't go into too much detail about this, but I really liked his character.  He was the strong silent type but plays somewhat of a big role for one of the other characters.

One of the most hilarious things in the book are the rats.  Rats are gross (yes), but in this book they are pretty funny.  Many funny things happen with rats, one even involving Abby.  I laughed my tail off at what happened to Abby.  Again - can't go into too much detail on that - don't want to give it away.

This book was a nice end to the series.  It was a quick read.  Funny, witty, entertaining - everything I like in a book.

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

So, after finishing Bloodsucking Fiends on April 25, I started book 2 in this series, You Suck: A Love Story, on April 29.  I finished this little gem on May 7 - so, yeah, a quick read again.  I really like quick reads, until they end and I wish they were longer.   

You Suck picked up where Bloodsucking Fiends left off.  A lot of this book is narrated by Abby Normal, a 16-year old goth girl who becomes the daytime minion of Tommy and Jody.  It's hilarious how this, at times precarious, relationship comes to be.

The Safeway Animals continue to have a large role in the book as does a blue hooker, the ancient vampire who turned Jody, The Emperor and his 2 fearless canine companions, the 2 SFPD cops, and we meet several other interesting characters.

This is a witty, funny vampire novel that I tore through in like 9 days.  Loved it, and couldn't wait to get into the 3rd book in this series.  The Husband was able to get #3 from the library (I find it odd the library didn't have #1 or #2, but did have #3)...  Things that make you go hmmmm...  Anyways, this was an entertaining quick read.  If you like vampire books and San Francisco - pick this one up - but read them in order.

As I was reading other reviews of this book, some thought it fell a little flat after reading the first one.  I don't remember noticing that while reading this book.  I did notice, as other reviewers mention, several typos which always make me cringe.  Regardless of those, I did really like the book and the antics of all of the characters.  It's funny - putting together all of the vampire stuff I've seen and read - each author has a slightly different take on what it is really like being a vampire.  Just the other night as I was flipping through the channels on TV, I came across one of the Twilight movies - and Edward (vampire) was out during the day.  The Husband remarked that he thought vampires had to be in the dark during the day and why could Edward be out in the day.  I didn't have a good answer for him - so I think I said - he's a different kind of vampire, and left it at that.  The Husband chuckled and changed the channel.