A Year of Reading: May 2011

[starfishchick]

Comments

[mellyflori]

I'm in the middle of a kind of epic non-fiction kick so I've read some interesting things lately. I loved "The Murder Room" about the cases and personalities of the Vidoq Society (a group so cool my husband thought it was fictional). I also had a blast with "Beating Back the Devil" about the students in the first class of the CDC's Epidemiological Investigation Section.. frankly the idea that there's like and FBI for diseases is cool and terrifying all at once. Also it made me even more twitchy about how close to USAMRID I live.

What else... um... I'm reading a book about Marco Polo's time in the court of Kublai Kahn that hasn't gotten boring yet even though I keep expecting it to. If you have any interest in forensic stuff, the history of the prohibition era in the US, or why poisoners are just so dang smart I highly recommend "The Poisoner's Handbook" as it's really about all of those. Also why the U.S. government's attempt to keep people from killing themselves with drink led to a lot more people killing themselves with drink. We're smart like that.

If you like Mary Roach (and I *adore* her, particularly "Bonk" which I reread for fun about every five months) her newest, "Packing for Mars" is a look at the science of living in space. Not space travel, but the very act of just.. being. Like how the food all has to be coated so it doesn't make crumbs, because crumbs don't fall to the floor, they float around and jam up the controls. And of course, big sections about toilets.

Also, on a lark I listened to an audio recording of Bill Bryson's "At Home" which bills itself as a "short history of private life" and the reading and subject and approach just charmed me. He goes through the house he's renting room by room and talks about how something in the room, or the existence of the room at all, led to changes in how we live our daily lives either in big or quiet ways. Nice if you've had just a crazy week and you need some calm easy reading.

And now I'm going to go friend you on Goodreads. Yay!

[starfishchick]

I read At Home in March and loved it. (And I read Packing for Mars in January and liked it a lot. I was OK with the toilets, but too much information on motion sickness.)

Ooh, Beating Back the Devil sounds great - though it would likely ramp up my paranoia to unbearable degrees.

And yes, add me on Goodreads!!