Review 454: Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners

Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners by Gretchen Anthony
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I thought this would be a holiday related book, but it wasn't really. Instead we have a young lesbian couple about to have their first child. The mother, Violet, of the pregnant woman, Cersie, is a control freak. Cersie and Barb delay telling Violet of the pregnancy in order to not overshadow the retirement party for her father. So during a speech Violet hears of the baby and outright faints. In fainting she crashes and into things and ends up with a serious concussion.

Being a control freak and now having neurological issues is the set up for this book, which tries to be so humorous.  I think it was outrageous at times, but I hardly laughed. 

The only Christmas related thing was, well the main event the book started with was just before the holidays. And there is a Christmas letter that Violet writes every year which is peppered throughout the book to show history of their family.  

The book was okay, maybe some people would enjoy the humor more than I did. Perhaps this type of humor works better on screen, I don't know. I found it meh.

Review 453: Open Throat

Open Throat by Henry Hoke
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars


This is a short book, I read it easily in one day. It takes the point of view of a mountain lion, who does understand English. He learns the words from hikers and a group of homeless people he lives with. The mountain lion lives in the wilderness area near the Hollywood sign, although he used to live in a different area.

Getting water and food to eat is a struggle. Humans have become interesting to him since he is so hungry, but it didn’t use to be that way.

An interesting take on the modern problems of the city (such as housing costs) and climate change.

I listened to the audiobook, which was well done by the narrator.

Review 452: The Christmas Hirelings

The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Short Christmas related read.

A novella for the holidays. This is a classic, published originally in 1894 taking place in England. Sir John Penlyon decides that this Christmas some children should be around his lonely huge manor house. So a friend brings three children that were hired to have Christmas for a fortnight on the estate. 

Sir John Penlyon had casted his only daughter out to never accept her as his daughter and definitely not give her any money. She had the audacity to elope and marry beneath her station, which her father would not forgive. Thus, this many years later he is an old man missing children at Christmas.

His friend then brings three children in for the holiday. The youngest which was nicknamed Poppet is so smart and advanced for her young years of four and Sir John and her grow very close in no time. All the children enjoy their time, and gifts at the estate. They go out one day a few days after Christmas to enjoy and play in the snow. The next day Poppet had developed a cold. It gets worse, then even worse, to where they must call in the mother. Of course, the mother is the daughter that was cast out.  At this point Poppet was starting to recover, with her mother there, so Sir John leaves for London for a while. He still does not want to see his daughter, and realized by this point who the children were.

Review 451: Storm

Storm by George R. Stewart
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars


This is a unique novel, in that it follows a storm over the course of twelve days, from it’s birth to death. The storm is a main character – Maria (pronounced like Ma-RYE-a). This is an old book, written in the late 1930s, published in 1941 and it feels old.

Instead of one main character, we see glimpses of various lives and how they deal with the storm.
We see men at their jobs – from road crews, telephone men, airplane dispatchers, to the weather forecasting bureau. The make sure the infrastructure continues to run smoothly, despite the effects of the storm. We start with the weather bureau, the Junior Meteorologist, with his new scientific methods such as using a slide rule. There is the Load Dispatcher who maintains the electric power and water, keeping track of the rising level of water making sure the dams don't overflow.

Many of the men aren’t named, just called by their titles, such as the Chief Service Office who directs the planes, The General Manager overlooking the rail lines. Everyone’s job is very important to keep people out of danger.

We get glimpses of something that happens with the effects later on, such as an owl that accidentally is electrocuted. Later the weakened wire breaks, the linemen are called out to go fix it, with the details provided.

Certainly these jobs are still being done today, but in different ways. Probably with less people with more monitoring done remotely. They had people out there visibly checking the rail lines, the roadways, the waterways, and today I expect there are cameras or other sensing equipment.

Somewhat interesting book even though it was old, and lots of details on meteorological storms and how they could behave. Every storm is unique.

Review 450: Ripe

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This book takes place in 2020, the early months of the year, with Cassie as our main character. She’s a year in after college graduation working with a tech start-up company. She had to move to San Francisco and found a friend by their mutual dislike of the city.

Cassie’s job and bosses have unreasonable expectations, not only long hours but taking workshops and working on special (illegal) projects on the weekends. As we get close to the pandemic starting the company states they do not believe in working from home.

Then there’s this black hole that follows Cassie since she was little. It’s obviously depression and anxiety, which grows or diminishes according to situations.

We see her interact with friends she doesn't particularly like, a boyfriend who already has a girlfriend, and parents who tell her she can never come back home. No wonder she is depressed. It's not a joyful read, but there is humor, dark satirical humor.

Review 449: Knick Knack Paddy Whack (or) The Talk of the Town

Knick Knack Paddy Whack by Ardal O'Hanlon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Patrick Scully is not a likeable character. From the onset we are slapped around with cuss words and awful language, that somehow settles down as the book goes on. It’s the first year out of school and his friends have all gone to university while Patrick is feeling left behind, despite that they all share a flat in Dublin. His girlfriend Francesa doesn’t really like him too much, but he doesn’t know this, only she won’t go all the way, so he’s still a virgin. On the weekends he takes the bus back home to his village and spends the weekend with friends getting drunk at the pub or club, and maybe getting into a fight.

It's not a pretty book by any means. Interspersed with Patrick’s POV we get entries from Francesca’s diary that is detailed and erudite. This is how we learn she tolerates Patrick, maybe feels sorry for him, and has affection for his roommate Xavier whom they call Balls.

The timeline isn’t linear and we even have Patrick making up something that could have happened so the story is not clear. As the book goes on, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the lonely Scully. Still, I did not enjoy the journey.

The book was originally published with the title "The Talk of the Town" which I think fits better

Review 448: Timber Wars

Timber Wars by Judi Bari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Judi Bari was an activist for saving old growth redwoods. She worked within the group Earth First! and helped to organize non-violent actions and protests to save the forests from the continuing of clear-cut practices. Of course, doing this caused a ruckus and as a result she was bombed. This bomb was a small personal bomb placed underneath her car seat, and it’s surprising she even survived. She nearly didn’t. Instead, she had a painful recovery and permanent disability afterwards.

What becomes more amazing is the first instinct for the FBI is that she and her passenger Darryl Cherney must have been transporting the bomb for nefarious activity and so arrested them, while still in the hospital for the bombing. After not enough evidence was ever discovered to charge them, the case was dropped against Bari and Cherney. However, neither the FBI nor the Oakland Police, where the bombing occurred, seriously looked into who may have actually done this.

Through the Freedom of Information Act Bari was able to get hold of her FBI files and they showed that the FBI used this bombing to investigate all the environmental activists they could. Digging into phone records they also looked into anyone who may have been contacted, which included family members. It is utterly surprising there was no serious investigation into who actually committed the crime.

So, this book is a compilation of articles Bari wrote, mostly newspaper articles, along with a few interviews with the media. The focus is quite often on the bombing. It does get to be repetitive with the same information going over time and again, but I don’t blame Bari, if I was bombed, I’d be talking about it every chance I got, especially when nothing was being done to find the culprit.

The articles are in chronological order, from October 1989 to the last in February 1994 as a lengthy article that appeared in Earth First Journal covering specific details on the bombing and investigation, which included several photos. The most mainstream publication Bari had an article published was with Ms. Magazine, where she focused on feminism and bringing that to environmental activism.

The thrust of the book is about the car bombing and Bari suggests a few culprits, starting with the FBI as the prime suspect. She also discusses evidence that the officials never investigated, such as a letter sent to the local newspaper that took responsibility for the bomb and included details about it that was not public knowledge. This letter also matched another that was sent by someone Bari knew which told the Oakland police he would be an informant against Bari.

Anyway, the book goes into these details, and more, many times. Also included is the local organizing and demonstrations against the corporate companies that were doing the clear-cutting. Bari makes it clear she was for the loggers, the individuals who lived in the area, but was against the destroying of the forest and the jobs for these loggers. Without using the word sustainable, this is what she was striving for, sustainable logging. Then loggers would have employment and people would have the wood they need.

It's a fascinating history, and the work Bari, Earth First!, and other activists did stopped the logging and saved the final areas of old growth redwoods. In the late 1980s there was only 5% left in the world still standing and the corporations wanted to take that too. Today they are still there. A paltry 120,000 acres, but at least it is still there.

Review 447: Breakfast with Buddha

Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

A typical family Christian man gets trapped into taking a spiritual man, Volya Rinpoche across the country. Otto was going to drive his sister, whom he does call flakey, to their parent’s farm in North Dakota to sell the place after their parents sudden death in a car accident. Instead, the sister says she wants her spiritual leader Rinpoche to have her part of the farm so he could set up a retreat. Otto is furious but takes him along on the ride. Slowly as the days eek by Otto relaxes and opens up to the teachings of Rinpoche.

It was an okay book, it felt preachy at times to me, or maybe forced is a better word. This is not my first foray into Zen, Buddhism, or anything along those lines, so I’m no opposed to the message, just in the delivery how it came across. I do have another book, the third in the series. I may just skip the second and go straight to that one, not sure yet. In any case, won’t be in the immediate future.

Review 446: The Lost City of the Monkey God

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a non-fiction book, and you can tell because the subtitle says “A True Story”. Really, have to laugh at books that have that type of subtitle. With that type of subtitle, then you have to set your expectations low for quality. Despite that, I was dismayed when a large portion of the book went into the details of an illness the author and several other people got from their time in the jungle.

This is a book about the exploration for the mythical Ciudad Blanca in Honduras. It was also known as the City of the Monkey God, presumably the people who used to live in this lost city would worship monkeys, well they are prevalent in the jungle. One man was dedicated to finding this lost city. He isn’t an archeologist, just someone with money, time, and liked adventures.

It took him nearly twenty years, and with advancements of technology, he was able to assemble a team to do another search. The team consisted of journalists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers (which included the author, writing for National Geographic). Later it also included archeologist and anthropologists to round out the team as scientific and acceptable to the academic community. Well, it almost was, controversy still did arise and partly due to the change of government. Which yes, this adventurer did have a hand in overthrowing the Honduras government in favor of someone who was more to his way of thinking about exploring the deep jungle.

The team did find a large city that was abandoned around 500 years ago, and in fact found two large cities. They looked to have at one time had thousands of inhabitants. They also found several caches of artifacts that were still buried and left untouched since those people left the ancient city.

I could have done without the extremely lengthy discussion on the parasite and infection the author and several of the team contracted from their time in the deep jungle. Certainly, one would expect some mention, but it kept going and at great length it started to feel like another book was being written.

Overall, I did learn about something as I hadn’t heard about this Honduras exploration before, despite all the publicity. Have a feeling the author does better with his fictional writing, which maybe one day I will try out.