The Spokane Public Library has been closed for a while now because of the Chinese virus but like many restaurants they offer curbside pickup. So I've begun requesting books again.
I wanted to read the new book about Henry Kissinger by Barry Gewen, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World. It seemed too expensive to buy so I requested it and though this is the sort of book I normally have to get in line for, because many folks are not bothering to use the library request system at the moment I was first on the waiting list.
The library lets you sign up for pickup of such books at 15 minute intervals all day, with six pickup spots. A library worker brings the book to your car and away you go. It works well. But one of the things about this system that was a surprise to me is the lagniappe. They offer the opportunity to request four books of the library's choice in eight or ten categories: literary fiction, nonfiction, children's picture books, etc. I chose nonfiction. And here is what they sent me.
Garage Sale America by Bruce Littlefield is all (and I do mean all) about garage sales. They almost never actually take place in the garage but rather on the front driveway and lawn. And they can have almost anything for sale. There is an etiquette that has developed around these weekend activities. You may bargain but you may not use your cell phone, at least not right there in front of the seller, to see what you might get an item for on eBay, for example. As with all of these books, there are lots of photos. And although I am not a garage sale person, nonetheless the book was filled with entertaining info.
Unlikely Loves: 43 Heartwarming True Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer S. Holland. Animals raised together if they are well-fed and have human interaction can often develop an unlikely "friendship" with the other animals nearby. So you see a giraffe who is best buddies with a goat and a fox and hound and the inevitable owl and the pussycat. The photos are charming. A little sentimentality is welcome once in a while. My sister particularly likes this sort of story and this book will go on the possibles list for a birthday present.
117 Things You Should F*#king Know About Your World by Paul Parson. Sigh. Some people don't seem to understand that rude profanity does not appeal to the book buying public in the same way it perhaps titillates the TV cop show watching adult children. I would have been slightly more receptive to this book if the things it wants to tell us were not so predictably scatological or otherwise aimed at 12-year-old male tastes. But even within the parameters it has set, the book is not appealing or creative nor is the news really new.
A dud.
A real dud.
And the best of the lot: Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul A Offitt. In fact, so spot on is this book it was lurking in the "Save for Later" section of my Amazon book cart. It tells stories of theories and discoveries in science that were dangerously wrong or destructive in the extreme. The most obvious and least recognized was the banning of DDT when Rachel Carson wrote her erroneous page-turner, Silent Spring. Because the reaction was so dramatic to this book which was filled with errors and poor judgement, DDT was banned world-wide and as a result billions of people have died of malaria who need not have been endangered if DDT had been continued to be used, but more carefully, to kill the parasite-carrying mosquitoes that spread it. Offitt also addresses the trend of using lobotomies to treat mentally ill people and Margaret Sanger's buy-in to the white Aryan superiority to other races and the need to create a clean gene pool by aborting babies with serious diseases such as Down's Syndrome. Not happy reading.
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