Reading Rambo

We are in the middle of the Sixth Extinction. Also known as the Anthropocene period, or Age of Humans. "Age of Humans" sounds grand, but it's less us being the center of it all and more us mucking up everything we touch. But don't worry! We've literally been doing it ever since we began existing!

The Sixth Extinction picks one type of going-extinct creature/plant per chapter, and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert chronicles the history of extinction as a concept, while explaining how we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event on Earth that we know of. Exciting, terrifying times.

I put off reading this for quite some time, because I thought it would just depress me. Strangely enough, it made it all seem kind of...normal. All while Kolbert and the scientists she interviews stress that this is very very not normal. Our oceans are being acidified, our global temperatures are rising, and we are almost OUT of Sumatran rhinos. But I did come out of it feeling that…

I. love. this. book. I feel no qualms in saying it should be required reading in school. Heroines of Mercy Street covers the women who volunteered, organized, and worked as nurses in the Civil War. We know words like Gettysburg, Bull Run, Antietam, and others, but we aren't told what happened after them - what happened to the wounded soldiers, and who cleaned up after the initial horror.

I thoroughly intended to watch PBS's Civil War nursing drama Mercy Street, and then...I did not. But why watch an entertaining work of fiction when you can read a 250 page book about the true events it's based on?



Like the series (apparently), the book focuses on the largest hospital in Alexandria, Virginia: Mansion House Hospital. Alexandria was the city occupied the longest by Union troops during the Civil War. It was so strategically placed, that less than 24 hours after Virginia seceded, Union troops crept in during the night and captured the city. 

Something I had little to no idea abou…

Emerald Fennell is maddening. She is the daughter of a successful jeweler, she studied English at Oxford, she stars in BBC's extremely popular show Call the Midwife, and to top it all off, she wrote this excellent book.


You might recognize her from GIFs I've shoved at you of Call the Midwife's couple Patsy and Delia. They're the greatest. Just look at them:



But let's get away from three-dimensional, well-crafted 1960s lesbian couples on television and get into this three-dimensional, well-crafted 2013 book. Shiverton Hall follows a long line of predecessors in that it's set at an English boarding school. Inevitably comparisons will be drawn to Harry Potter, but that is silly and cut it right out. Shiverton Hall is much darker than Harry Potter ever pretended to be. (except for maybe the time that snake came out the old woman's mouth and she collapsed in a flesh pile)

Shiverton Hall is about a boy (Arthur) who has been sent to a new school (Shiverton) after som…

Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. A girl and her cousin go exploring on their summer vacation and find a ghost town of summer houses from the turn of the century, as well as two elderly people who grew up there and are the last holdouts. They mainly tell the girl and the cousin (whose name might be Julian?) stories about growing up there.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I love Gone-Away Lake. I loved it when I was ten and I love it now.


Tales of the past! Backstory! All that stuff! And they explore old houses! I grew up in the country, and while we weren't so isolated that we could potentially find a whole group of hidden houses, there was a lot of creek-exploring and thicket-roaming, so we could imagine we were so isolated we could potentially find a whole group of hidden houses. The two main characters' wandering about without parents was very familiar, since everyone knew everyone in my community. (and told us to stop going in their creek because it was dangerous, but it was a CREEK, …

Before proceeding any further, you have to be aware that I read books for humor, character development and love stories. I don't really care about anything else. Oh! Good writing. That's kind of implied, but this is why I don't just read romance novels.
This book has ALL THOSE THINGS.
Plus the fun format of emails for about half of it.
Ok, so Lincoln is the new nightshift IT guy for a Nebraska newspaper, meaning he reads emails flagged for inappropriate workplace language and then sends the offenders a warning. Plus I think he does some other IT-y type things, but this is not important.
Two women's emails keep being flagged, but they are so hilarious and heartwarming that he keeps not sending them a warning. And then...then shenanigans happen, i.e. he falls in love with one of them. And NO MORE PLOT. Because it unfolds in a delightful fashion and I love it so. 
I started out being like "ha-hah! this novel is so amusing" and then it turned into "YOU TWO KISS …

I was doing my daily blog-skimming from Google Reader the other day, when something on Laura from Devouring Texts' blog caught my eye. And that would be a reference to How to Leave Twitter by Grace Dent, which she loved.
So I have a particular kind of love for obscure British celebrities, which is at least partially due to me finding it hilarious to know anything about them. I follow a gang of them on twitter, and they all tweet to each other, because there are ten people in all British Entertainment (it's a tiny island), so they of course know each other. They're mostly clever/funny, but they also make many references to things I totally don't get, because, y'know, two countries separated by a common language, etc etc.
The author is one of these people. My path to knowledge of her went like this: 1. Get interested in British actress Keeley Hawes. Watch her show Ashes to Ashes. 2. See Amelia Bullmore on Ashes to Ashes, google her. 3. Find pictures of Amelia Bullmore …