Amazon is recommending I purchase the Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants.

I wonder what brought that on?

Blackbeard

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate by Angus Konstam was slow reading for me. This was due to the fact that I started this book with zero previous knowledge about pirates and Konstam is an expert. While I was approaching Blackbeard with the glee of an 10 year old boy, looking for gory details, battles, hangings, and blood and guts, Konstram was seriously discussing the history of pirates and Blackbeard's life. Sometimes the details became a bit tedious and boring to me. Also, only about half the book is actually specifically about Blackbeard. The first half of the book covers the history of pirates.

This may have not been the best first pirate book for me to read.

From Amazon:

"Konstam, the Scottish author of more than 50 maritime history books here explores the dreaded Blackbeard, "the archetypal pirate of the age...and one of the most fearsome figures around." Konstam makes a thorough, exciting examination of 18th century pirate life, with wonderful details such as the pirates' code, which can read as a precursor to America's own Bill of Rights: "Every man has a Vote in Affairs of Monument, has equal Title to the fresh Provisions, or strong Liquors, at any Time seized & use them at pleasure." However, the author's portrait of the seadog fails for two reasons: first, very little is known about Blackbeard, and Konstam hasn't been able to uncover much that's new; "we must assume" becomes a frequent, frustrating qualifier when the book focuses on its subject. Secondly, Konstram is fond of cliches: a ruler's power base collapses "like a house of cards" while another is able to "walk the political tightrope;" and the feared pirate himself "would stop at nothing to get what he wanted." The padding necessary to produce a lengthy version of Blackbeard's story produces a work that has little of the dash and derring-do readers will expect from the biography of a pirate, and ends up painting Blackbeard less as a terror of the high seas than a bully with a big boat. Illustrations."
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What I'm planning to do is read another pirate book, Under the Black Flag. Then I have a book on Captain Kidd that will follow at some point. (I also have 2 more nonfiction virus books calling me.) This will break the fiction/nonfiction order I'm trying to follow for the year, but I think it may be time to toss that rule out. As of today I'll be reading rule free and may be reading more nonfiction for awhile.

quote

Anthony Trollope said, "Of the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable."

(Borrowed from Pattie)

quotes

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

~Albert Einstein

Heart-Shaped Box

Some readers are going to expect a whole lot from Joe Hill's debut novel Heart-Shaped Box because Hill is the son of Stephen and Tabitha King. Hill will not disappoint the majority. A new 2007 release, Heart-Shaped Box runs 374 pages but is an easy afternoon read. In the book middle aged rocker Judas Coyne buys a ghost advertised in an online auction. The ghost will arrive in the dead man's suit. After the suit arrives, Coyne discovers he was set up. The ghost "auction" was in reality only offered to Coyne and he now has living in his house a malignant spirit, the stepfather of one of his former groupies, who is out to kill him. Ostensibly the ghost is out for revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide, but Hill slowly reveals that there is more to the story.

After about the first 100 pages I wasn't sure if I wanted to finish this book or not. I'm not a huge fan of strictly graphic horror stories and it sure appeared it was headed in that direction. Then the tale took a twist and I kept reading. I'm not disappointed that I finished the book. In the end, Hill had some clever plot twists, tied up all the loss ends nicely, and there was a satisfying conclusion. I will admit, however, that I quickly skimmed through a couple of the more graphic scenes.

Virus Hunter

Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World by C. J. Peters and Mark Olshaker is a first person account of a real virus hunter. C. J. Peters spent his professional career studying deadly viruses in a lab and in the field. He was in the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and later in charge of the CDC. This book covers some of his more intriguing cases as well as his career and personal life. If you just want to read about deadly viruses, this probably isn't the book for you. Yes, the viruses are covered, but this is really more of an autobiography. Look at The Hot Zone or The Coming Plague for more exciting reading. Once you've read several different books about viruses and read the name of the men and women who have worked with them, you will recognize C. J. Peters names, as well as other people mentioned in this book. Virus Hunter was originally published in 1997.

Quotes:

"I was suddenly gripped by what we refer to as 'the pucker factor,' an uncomfortable and unpleasant tightening of certain sphincter musculature."

Concerning PR work with the media:

" We needed a well-conducted Strauss waltz to inform and calm the public, but instead what we had was a simultaneous competition among heavy-metal bands"

Concerning an emergency vaccine made in response to an outbreak:

"Worse, since it was made in the brains of these mice, recipients also got a does of foreign brain material, with the risk of autoimmune encephalitis. This is a pretty scary premise for a modern vaccine."

"African and Asian monkeys are critical to laboratory science throughout the Western world; you couldn't simply stop importing them. Even worse, cell cultures from their kidneys were used to prepare polio vaccines and the polio virus could grow side by side with [the] Marburg [virus] in the same cell cultures."

quiz

1. What time did you get up this morning? I got up at about 8:00 AM.

2. Diamonds or pearls? Pearls

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Uh... I really, truly don't remember. It was probably some movie from 1982, maybe.

5. What did you have for breakfast? coffee

7. What foods do you dislike? I don't want anything too firey hot and spicy

8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Te Vaka's Tutuki (truly)

9. What kind of car do you drive? Old's Alero

10. Favorite sandwich? Assuming it is made with tomatoes fresh from the garden, a BLT, otherwise probably a ham sandwich.

11. What are characteristics you can’t stand? I can't stand liars, bullies, and know-it-alls

12. If you could go anywhere on vacation where would you go? I have some more large trees I want to visit. Friends will know what I mean.

13. Favorite time of day? evenings

16. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Night owl

17. Pedicure or manicure? Neither

18. What did you want to be when you were little? depending upon the age, either a pioneer orphan or a lawyer.

19. What is your best childhood memory? This is a tough one. It is either running and playing in the sand bars on the Platte River in Nebraska (any one who has seen the Platte in the summer in the middle of the state will understand why) or looking with my grandmother at her flower garden.

20. Ever been toilet papering? me???

21. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

22. Favorite flower? Obviously I like lilacs if flowering shrubs count. I find it hard to pick a favorite flower.

23. Favorite ice-cream? It really all depends upon what I'm in the mood for and what is in the fridge. Normally I like an ice cream with some chocolate; there is a mocha java flavor that I've enjoyed recently.

24. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? Passed on the first try. Of course this was after a drivers ed class and I did the driving test in a small town. I think they may be a bit stricter now.

25. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Assuming that I would be stupid enough to do this, it would be at Amazon.

26. Last person you went to dinner with? My whole loud family.... sigh

27. What are you listening to right now? An airplane passing by

29. How many tattoos do you have? none, unless age spots count

30. Coffee or tea? Both!

31. Do you tan easily or burn easily? Burn

32. Do you color your hair? If so, how often? No coloring. I earned the gray that's coming in.

34. What is your most dreaded household chore? Currently it is cleaning the double shower in the master bathroom. It's too big to easily clean. I'd try a new automatic shower cleaning device, but we're trying to sell the house and move, so I wouldn't want buyers to want it.

(I edited this quiz that was going around to suit me, so some of the original questions were left off of it. )