Triangle

Triangle: The Fire that Changed America may or may not be worth the time. My used copy was not worth MY time because the unscrupulous person who sold it as "like new" neglected to mention all the underlining and margin notes she scrawled all through the book in purple, green, and blue ink.

As I mentioned to a book group, "I think the feeling that the previous owner sloppily defaced the book, like book graffiti, drives me crazy.The ink color drives me crazy. The sloppy underling drives me crazy. The dumb boxes she put around certain words drive me crazy. Her insipid, stupid margin notes drive me crazy. (Most of these margin notes are worthless. They offer no special insight into anything. It's like she made them just to be writing them 'cus it made her look smart.) The sloppy way some of her notes went over the text drive me crazy. "

By the way, her name is Liz. She had the author, David Von Drehle sign the book to her. She apparently was reading it for a MA Lit class. I bet, based on her margin notes, she failed the class. She probably took the money she made selling the book and invested it in more cute colored gel pens.

Deep Storm

Deep Storm by Lincoln Child is a first rate action adventure sci-fi novel. Child is always highly recommended for any book he co-authors with Douglas Preston. Let me assure Preston/Child readers that in Deep Storm Child is equally enjoyable. In Deep Storm, Peter Crane, a naval doctor, is recruited to help diagnose a mysterious illness that has broken out on a North Atlantic oil rig. Once he arrives, Crane discovers that the real action is below the oil rig at a secret underwater excavation project code named Deep Storm. Once he has security clearance, Crane is told that they have discovered the lost city of Atlantis, but soon discovers that this is a cover story for the real secret. Meanwhile, the mysterious illness that many in the crew are experiencing exhibits a wide variety of symptoms and Crane is stumped as to the cause.

The book Polio: An American Story really did hold my attention the whole time I was reading it. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or what, but I'm starting to enjoy certain non-fiction books more and more. The reason reading about the development of the Polio vaccine caught my attention could be in part because of my age. The battle against Polio had been "won" by the time I was born, 1959, but the effects of Polio were still very evident.

I also vividly recall standing in line, by class, in a school cafeteria in Omaha with many other kids in the school. We were all there to get a shot for.... something. I don't think it was for polio; this would have been too late for those mass vaccinations, but what was it for???? Now I really want to know because I don't have the faith in the medical community that most people would have had during that time, the 60's, that everything they say you have to do is really the truth. Nor do I trust how those vaccinations were (potentially) made.

Anyway, this mass vaccination memory disturbs me. I need to see if my sister remembers it. She is only 2 years younger than me and I know she was there. I can't remember if my older brother was there, but I don't recall his class being in line.

update:

Well, I talked to my mom and she has no idea what they would have been shooting us up with at that time. We, parents, older brother, me, and one sister ( the other two siblings weren't born yet), apparently stood in line around 1961 or ' 62 for our polio vacinnations and did the 3 times oral. She's wondering if it was some kind of flu vaccination for an outbreak.

Polio: An American Story

Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky was a Pulitzer Prize winner in History for 2006. This book lives up to it's recommendations. It really is an engrossing historical account of the crusade to find a vaccination for poliomyelitis. Oshinsky details how FDR helped raise awareness of polio, the creation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and the March of Dimes. All the scientific professional rivalries, missteps, and breakthroughs are carefully placed in a historical context and covered equitably. The main rivalry in the history of the polio vaccination was between Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk. They represent the two camps of virologists: those who believed in an attenuated live-virus vaccine (Sabin) versus those who believed in a killed-virus vaccine (Salk).

"un-alphabetized" and "un-arranged by subject"

The recent "un-alphabetized" and "un-arranged by subject" -ness of my book cases has me all in a tizzy.

We have 4 large double book cases in our bonus room (or library as we like to call it) and we all love our books. Combining that with a house that is for sale and it's easy to see how this wall of bookcases could look messy. Books were stacked up and spilling out of it. I packed some up, thinking that would help. My daughter had a better idea. She suggested that in order to make our wall of bookcases look less cluttered, it might help to arrange the books by size, rather than my preferred method of organization, alphabetized or by subject.

The book cases look GOOD, which was the point, but now, when I want to find a book quickly, I can't. I'll think "Oh, that's by _______ and it will be there." The problem now is that looking "there" where the book should be no longer helps. The book could be anywhere. Now I have to remember if the book I'm looking for is hardcover or paperback. Is it a large or small paperback/hardcover. Then I need to try to remember the color of the cover, if possible.

It will be wonderful when we finally sell this house, move, and I can put my bookcases back into the order I like. I miss the alphabetization.

It's been said that learning to respond gracefully to ungraciousness is like learning to play the piano....if you didn't encounter people who treat you ungraciously, you'd never have the opportunity to learn to practice grace of your own.