Buzz, Sting, Bite by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Rating: WORTHY!

This audiobook, read delightfully by Kristin Milward, is a wonderful overview of the insect world and the importance of all of them - even the annoying ones! Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is a professor of conservation biology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences located about 10 miles south of Oslo. She writes well, and with a nice sense of humor which isn't lost in the English translation that I listened to.

There are nine main chapters, the title of each being self-explanatory:

1. Small Creatures, Smart Design: Insect Anatomy
2. Six Legged Sex: Dating, Mating, Parenting
3. Eat or be Eaten: Insects in the Food Chain
4. Insects and Plants: a Never-Ending Race
5. Busy Flies, Flavorsome Bugs: Insects in Our Food
6. The Circle of Life - And Death: Insects as Janitors
7. From Silk to Shellac: Industries of Insects
8. Lifesavers, Pioneers, and Nobel Prize Winners: Insights From Insects
9. Insects and us; What's Next?

Here are some quotes directly from the book description - which for once in a rare while is accurate and useful: "Most of us know that we would not have honey without honeybees, but without the pinhead-sized chocolate midge, cocoa flowers would not pollinate. No cocoa, no chocolate." "Blowfly larva can clean difficult wounds; flour beetle larva can digest plastic; several species of insects have been essential to the development of antibiotics." "There are insects that have ears on their knees, eyes on their penises, and tongues under their feet." What's not to love about a book like this?! I commend it heartily.

Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu

Rating: WORTHY!

Finally, a classic that I enjoyed! Published only one year before the author died, the 1872 novella Carmilla is an engrossing tale of one woman's hold on others through her vampire charms. It's narrated in first person by a female protagonist named Laura (and one who I initially thought was a male narrator!). Normally I do not like first person voice, but in this story it's not obnoxious or overwhelmingly ridiculous.

The story is of the Countess Karnstein, who has lived for a century or more, moving from place to place and changing her name - but always the new name being an anagram. We meet her as Carmilla, but in earlier times she has gone by Mircalla and Millarca. Naturally until the story is quite advanced, the actors in this drama have no idea of Carmilla's age or her vampire traits.

Wikipedia declares this to be a lesbian vampire story, but there isn't any overt lesbianism in it and I think in declaring it as such, the author of that article (who I'd be willing to bet is a male!) misses the fact that in Victorian times women were often in close relationships with impassioned statements of love and feeling, but without necessarily any lesbian inclinations or behaviors. Perhaps that's what le Fanu intended, or perhaps it wasn't. For me, I don't care either way; I just don't think the case has necessarily been made.

In many ways this story was a template for Bram Stoker's much better known Dracula which came a quarter century later, but vampire tales and legend precede both of these books by a good many years. There is the female victim, Laura, and clueless male companions and friends, but again I take odds with Wikipedia's assertion that this is a female empowerment novel since it isn't Laura who saves herself in the end. In fact, she plays a rather passive role in this story. Predictably (in hindsight!), it is an older male expert who shows up later and finally dispatches the vampire in her coffin.

This story begins with the oddball overture of a carriage racing along and overturning right outside where Laura and her father live, and the plea of the female who is riding in it that Laura's father take charge of her youthful (so it's understood!) and out-of-sorts daughter, to enable the woman to continue with her urgent journey.

Those were much more trusting times, and the nobility were much more reliable, and trustworthy in general, so none of that is particularly strange for the era. What is strange is that this traveling party is neither explained, nor is it ever seen or heard from again. There's no explanation offered as to who the travelers are or why they're in such a confounded hurry, or even what their relationship is to Carmilla, if any. So they disappear and we're left with Carmilla and her blossoming relationship with Laura.

The two become, as they might have said back then, bosom companions, despite Carmilla's somewhat odd traits: her lethargy, her sleeping very late into the day, her pallour, and her off-kilter habits. They declare love for each other, but nowhere do they exhibit any overt behavior or any behavior beyond what might be expected of any pair of young Victorian ingénues who are very fond of one another and excited to have such a suitable companion.

After a time through, Laura starts succumbing to some sort of a wasting illness, accompanied by bizarre dreams, and stories are spreading of deaths in the nearby communities. Despite this, it isn't until General Spielsdorf comes into the story that Laura and her father learn that the supposedly extinct Karnstein family has an extant descendent: a countess who does not die, but relocates herself periodically under a new name and preys on vulnerable, young local women. After a search, Carmilla's tomb is located on the derelict Karnstein estate, and she is summarily dispatched, leaving Laura with bittersweet memories.

I throughly enjoyed the story, perhaps being primed to favor it through having seen the 1970 Hammer Film production of Carmilla which was titled The Vampire Lovers and which played very much into the lesbian aspect. It starred Ingrid Pitt, a vamp herself, as Carmilla, along with the startlingly fresh and youthful Madeline Smith as Laura, and the inevitable Peter Cushing as Spielsdorf. It was the first of a trilogy, but I can't recall if I ever saw any of the sequels. I enjoyed that movie however, and it does follow the story quite well, so anyone who isn't interested in reading an old novella might like to see the film instead. I commend the book though as a worthy read.

The Falcon's Heart by Diana Green

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an enjoyable story, albeit with some issues. I decided to read it because it reminded me in some small ways of my own Femarine. This novel is set in a fantasy world of deserts and magic and it's set in some time past where none of our modern mechanical and electrical wonders are yet in existence, but the world building at times refers to things - such as clocks - that appear not to exist in any form in this world. There were things in such times, such as water clocks, candle clocks, and hour glasses, that could tell time, but none of these are mentioned either.

The magic also has issues with consistency in that it seems to morph to fit the author's current needs rather than exist as its own entity. For example, one of the two main characters, Saba, is supposedly an empath, but apart from a mention at the beginning of the story, this power appears never to be used and indeed deserts her when she could really use it. It felt odd, but not a story killer for me although it seemed like a glaring omission at times when she was trying to understand the feelings of her captor.

Her captor is the Falcon - a female bandit and leader of a group of desert-dwelling thieves, eking out their own existence in a land where a selfish and ambitious pasha - Saba's father - is determined to usurp ever more land and power to satisfy his greed. In order to try to free a friend through a trade, the Falcon kidnaps Saba and whisks her away deep into the desert mountains, but Saba's father seems uninterested in making any deal to recover her despite her value as an aliance-builder when he offers her in marriage. He finds himself reliant on a sorcerer to track her down - the very one who wishes to have Saba's hand in marriage.

During their time together, of course, Saba and the Falcon fall for each other and eventually end up together, so the story is quite predictable from the off. It has no real surprises or problems to overcome. It's a light, harmless, decent, if rather fluffy story that I enjoyed despite the minor issues, so on these terms, I commend it as a worthy read, although I still prefer my own Femarine! Call me biased!

Atlas of a Lost World by Craig Childs

Rating: WORTHY!

Read decently by the author (I'm a big advocate of authors reading their own material for audio-books if they can), this book gave me mixed feelings at times. Overall, on balance though, I considered it a worthy read. The aim of it is to discuss how this planet changed over the course of the ice ages in North America, with a reference here and there to other parts of the world, and how this affected humans and their habits and migratory patterns. The way the author does it is to take trips and relate his experiences to things that may - or may not - have happened to ice age peoples who lived on the North American continent back then.

There's a lot of information dispensed here, but it's often mixed in with the author's own personal experiences and sometimes I think this muddies the waters. At one point he writes a mild admonishment that we should not imagine that people back then necessarily viewed the world in the same way we do today, and under different conditions. They had their own lives and drives, he advises, but then he goes right back to relating his experiences to theirs! It sounded a bit ambiguous.

The text is evocative and sometimes overly imaginative, but it never gets wildly out of control and it does tell an interesting story that really makes a reader (or in this case a listener) think about these things in new ways, which is what I liked about this. There's some technical information, but not an unwelcome amount, and I enjoyed that - learning about an era which is often not covered in the textbooks that like to ramble on about dinosaurs or early African hominids. It gave me some good perspectives about life back then, and on how hardy and creative these people were, and what they had to contend with. I commend this as a worthy listen.

Silence for the Dead by Simone St James

Rating: WORTHY!

Read delightfully by Mary Jane Wells, this was a truly sweet story that broke several of my rules and still kept my interest.

Typically I do not like first person voice, but once in a while the author carries it. I've had two of these just recently - one an ebook, and this one - an audiobook. A second rule it broke was that I do not usually like slow-moving stories. This one was one such story but it kept my interest anyway, because the character was engaging and the reader's voice was quite captivating. The third rules was that this was an early twentieth century novel which I usually do not enjoy - WW1 and WW2 are not my thing. Again, this was set in 1919 in an asylum for 'shell-shock'; victims - people suffering from what we now recognize as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but still it told an interesting story that had not been done before - not in my experience anyway - and it made a good job of it.

Kitty Weekes arrives at Portis House - a very remote house that was once in private hands but which is now given over - at least the parts of it that are not derelict - to the care of soldiers from "The Great War" who are not themselves. She hears from a third party about how desperate they are for nurses at this place and she outright lies that she's a nurse who has worked at a hospital in London, Due to staff shortages and disorganization, her story isn't checked and she's hired. She's also relieved because this is her last hope. Kitty is running from something and she is happy to be somewhere - even a place as dismal and disturbing as this - where she feels she can safely disappear.

She had an interesting relationship with the other staff - a handful of nurses and orderlies, and an rather antagonist relationship with matron, who discerns very early that she's not a nurse, but is desperate for the help she can offer, so the two have this sort of love-hate relationship that's really quite charming to read about.

The patients are a variety: some are fairly benign, others quite disturbing even to experienced nurses, and they all seem to be tormented by bad dreams - even the same bad dream. But there seems to be something else loose in Portis House, in the odd noises, the strange, chill breezes, the voices, and the inexplicable sightings of unfamiliar people.

There's also the anonymous patient 16 which only certain staff are allowed to interact with. Naturally Kitty bluffs her way into the room and is startled to find out she knows this guy - not because he's a friend or relative, but because he's a well-known personality and this is why his presence there is being kept secret. Over time she bonds with him and they both start investigating the unnatural aspects of Portis house, leading to a showdown one dark and stormy night - literally - when the rain is exceptionally heavy, patients are falling to the flu, and the bridge from the Portis House island to the mainland is in danger of becoming impassable.

I loved this story and the characters and I commend it strongly.

When Sparks Fly by Kristen Zimmer

Rating: WORTHY!

Normally I’d avoid a novel with a title like this because it's too much pretention, and there were a couple of times reading this that I wondered about the wisdom of continuing, but there was enough to keep my interest and to keep it fresh, and it told a sweet story of two engaging people. It was first person, too, but that wasn't obnoxious. Some authors can carry it, some stories can too, but to find the sweet intersection between those two is not easy.

This author did it successfully, but my objections to first person still apply even here, because there were two other important characters in this novel who were interesting and truly attractive to a reader, yet we didn't get their PoV because it was all Britton all the time. I think the story lost something because of that. Either of these characters could have told their own story because all three perspectives were equally engaging, but three 1PoVs would have ruined it - which begs the question as to why it wasn't told in third. First gear is far too trudging!

So anyway, Britton Walsh is a foster kid who's had the worst of the system: cruelty, abuse, and misery. She's learned to have a hard shell, to not give, to keep herself to herself and her feelings tightly under wraps. Just turned eighteen, she's aiming to finish high school and get free of all of this to start her own life at last. She's spending these last few months in the care of Tom and Cate Cahill who happen to have a daughter only slightly younger than Britton, but whereas Britton is a soft butch lesbian, their daughter, Avery is, at first glance, your standard queen bee cheerleader. She's popular, fashionable, great-looking, and doing well in school.

The idiot book description, evidently always written by some jackass who never read the book, claims Britton is "beginning her senior year with new foster parents in a new city" but that's not true. She's lived in this area all her life. She just happens to be in a new high school. She has a hard time adjusting because she's never had caring parents like Tom and Cate. She was given up by her bio-parents at birth because she had a heart defect. That's long been fixed, but her parents had no interest in her. Tom and Cate do. This makes it all the more difficult that Britton has a crush on Avery. It’s doubly-bad because Avery is hetero as far as Britton knows, and other than being friendly, has no interest in Britton - who Avery knows is queer.

Britton seems to have found an outlet for her urges though, in the form of Spence - Valerie Spencer - who is an out lesbian attending the same school. She and Britton begin hanging out, but Avery warns her foster sister about her new love interest several times. Now Britton is strung between two groups - the misfit crowd who Spence hangs with, and the elite crowd Avery hangs with, trying to navigate new and sometimes rather hostile waters.

I had some minor issues over a couple of aspects of the story. Why the author insisted upon having both the main love interests be eighteen before anything more than kissing occurred is a mystery since the age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen, not eighteen! Secondly, in light of this, Cate's 'house rules' toward the end were a bit bizarre given that both girls were eighteen at this point. But I was happy to let that slide. It’s no great big deal. Just odd is all.

That said, this story takes interesting and often unexpected paths to its satisfying conclusion and in the end, I really enjoyed it a lot.

Blow the Bloody Doors off by Michael Caine

Rating: WORTHY!

Michael Caine's autobiography is read by himself in the audiobook version and it was interesting, informative, and laugh-out-loud funny on occasion. I confess some slight disappointment that he doesn't talk more about the making of the various films he's been in. He does talk a lot about them, but his approach every time seems to be to focus on the elements which would help aspiring actors: offering tidbits and advice, and lessons he's learned, which is great, but I felt like he wasn't really talking to me, somehow.

I don't regret buying the book though - it's well worth listening to if you like him as an actor or are interested in the movie business. He covers his life from birth through youth to his first interest in the movies and thence onto his career: how there was a struggle and then how it took off once he'd made two relatively early and successful movies where he had major roles, such as Zulu in 1964 and Alfie two years later. This brought him to international recognition, and got him a lot more choice roles, and brought him into the world of movie superstars with all the attendant pleasures and problems.

Throughout the book the author remains grounded, good humored, and informative. He has no illusions about the movie business and tells it like it is - the good parts and the bad parts. He offers a lot of information and advice, and jumps from one move to another to make a point or illustrate an aspect of his life or his career. I'd have liked a lot more depth and breadth in his discussions of the movies, but I did appreciate what was offered. I enjoyed this book very much and commend it as a worthy read.

The Shaytan Bride by Sumaiya Matin

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a horrible story, but I mean that in a good way. To know that Muslim women are treated badly is one thing, but to have it slapped in your face repeatedly as this story does, is a shattering experience.

Sumaiya Matin moved with her family from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario as a young child, and effectively grew-up Candian, but still Muslim of course. Her family ties ran deep though, and when she returns on what she thinks is merely a visit, she has no idea that her family plans to marry her off while she's back in Bangladesh.

In Canada, she'd met and fallen in love with a Sikh guy, but this was not her family's plan for her, and neither she nor Bhav, the guy she fell for, knew how their relationship might work. They knew only that they wanted it to. Trapped in Bangladesh, cut-off from friends, denied access to a phone, Sumaiya had to struggle against everyone to ensure that it was she, not they, who determined what her future would be. She proved to be stronger than they, but strong as she is,mstill she could not make everything come out all right. The story was educational, uncomfortable but necessary to read, and in many ways depressing.

In a similar vein, it was not all plain sailing for me, as a reader. I am not religious, so my mind is often boggled at what believers believe and what they bring upon themselves. I was unaware of how deep the fantastical beliefs of some cultures still run, even now in the 21^st century. The stories of the Shayṭān Bride and the deep-seated beliefs in jinn were disturbing. It turns out that two-thirds to three-quarters of Bangladeshis believe in these spirits and in possession by such spirits, and women tend to believe more than men.

The story of the woman possessed by one such spirit was disturbing. I don't believe she was. It was doubtlessly a medical condition, but the story was quite moving and unsettling. There are also female jinn named jiniri, which I can no doubt have fun with in some future story I write!

In conclusion, This is a heart-breaking story of female subjugation, cruelty, and strength, of love and loss, and of one woman determined to be the author of her own destiny, and for that, I commend it.

Living With Viola by Rosena Fung

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I loved this graphic novel. Having dealt very recently with an anxiety situation which did not end well, it really spoke to me with all its messy art and confused panels, but it told a real story of problems and issues that can overwhelm a person so easily and without warning.

Based on the author's personal experience, we meet Livy, who is dealing with a new school, parental expectations, making friends, and growing into a young woman of color all at the same time. She does not expect Viola to show up - Livy's highly critical and judgmental alter-ego who only she can see, and who is a constant presence, delighting in her every failure. Making friends seems to provide some escape, but even that starts going sideways and Viola never lets up.

Fortunately in Livy's case, there is help; she's smart enough and strong enough to avail herself of it, and the outcome is good. I wish it could be that way for everyone. This book scorched some raw nerve-endings for me, but it told an honest and revealing story in graphic in enlightening terms, with inventive and provocative graphics and a sincere heart, and I commend it as a worthy read.

Vulnerable AF by Tarriona Ball

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Written and read by Tarriona "Tank" Ball, this book of hard hitting poetry tells a very personal story of relationships and the attendant hurt, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's very short - only about 40 minutes in audiobook form. The author is talented, with a strong poetic voice and a good reading voice, and her choices of words and phrasing are lively and challenging.

The actual audiobook apparently comes with PDFs of the illustrations from the print book, but my review copy had no such augmentation, so I can't speak to those. The subject matter is relationships, so the 'vulnerable' in the title has a very limited meaning. No prizes for guessing what the 'AF' means! The poet behind this has a slam poetry kinf of a background - not my faovrite, but this isnlt quite that. Some of the couplets might seem a bit off here and there, but you cannot deny the depth of feeling that underlies this. amd the relationship resonance that powers it.

Having said that, I had two issues with the audiobook version that I should mention. The first is that the author, who read this herself (for which I commend her), would often launch into a poem strong and loud, only to tail off into a whisper at the end, so this was an issue in that you'd have to have the volume up to hear the end, but then the start of the next poem was too loud and brassy, or you'd have the start at a comfortable volume only to miss the ending because it was so sotto voce. I listen to audiobooks when driving, and this book is not suited to that at all because of the volume changes, but even when parked I was still uncomfortable with the significant changes in volume.

The other issue I had was with the piano accompaniment, which to me was an annoyance. The author's voice is a fine one and it felt like gilding the lily to add a rather monotonous piano accompaniment to it. I'd rather it was just me and the author. I'm a big advocate of an author reading their own work although I understand that there are often valid reasons why an author will not or cannot do this. It seemed a shame to me, therefore, that I went into this with a joyous 'play Ball!' in my mind only to have my expectations sometimes overshadowed or diminished by the rather tuneless piano playing.

But that could not hide the inherent power, inventiveness, and strength of these words, which is why I consider this a worthy read despite the distractions. I commend it fully. Tank Ball is a poet to watch - and to listen to!

It's OK to Need a Friend by Annelies Draws

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I don't know squat about this author except that she (or maybe he!) draws and illustrates a treat, and presents us with a cute chubby Little Brown Bear who happily goes through life being a friend, helping out, and passing on and learning lessons. As the description has it, friendship is both a gift and a skill and this book helps youngsters to discover how to offer the one while picking up the other. I commend this as a worthy read.

It's OK to Make Mistakes by Annelies Draws

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

As the description has it, mistakes give us the power to learn and grow, and as long as we're doing that we're on a winning path. All it takes is a cautious sense of adventure and a willingness to try even if you may fail. I commend this as a worthy read.

ABC for Me: ABC Let's Celebrate You & Me by Sugar Snap Studio

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a cute and positive book, nicely illustrated, which goes A to Z on, as the description says, "either a physical or character attribute, and each page promotes self-love and kindness to others." This is delightfully true, and the attitude of kindness and acceptance which permeates every page is a joy and a treat. I commend this as a worthy read.

Andy Warhol by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Timothy Hunt

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've read many of Vegara's books. This author must be a little demon workhorse to turn out so many of these ebooks. I believe there are like five dozen of them now, and I sure haven't read that many, but I have read quite a few. There has been only one, if I recall correctly, that I have not liked. This one was no exception to the likeability rule.

Andy Warhola, as he was originally, was the child of Slovakian immigrants who was shy and had an artistic leaning from an early age. He finished college and moved quickly to New York where he was able to find work as an illustrator, before he branched out into celebrating the mundane and became a world-famous artist, inspired by the soup cans from which he made his lunch each day.

This book tells a short, sweet, and nicely illustrated (by Hunt) story of his life and work and I commend it.

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

Rating: WORTHY!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though it was rather on the long side and a bit rambling, but it's a topic I enjoy greatly, and an author I love. On top of this, it was read beautifully by Sean Runnette. I'm a big advocate of an author reading their own material, but I understand that there are good reasons why many authors do not. Though this reader isn't Dutch, listening to him reading it so well, it was one of those occasions where, with a slight stretch of the imagination, you can fool yourself into thinking that this is how the author would have read it.

The book rambles a bit and might be somewhat stodgy and overly academic for some, but it was precisely what I was expecting and I had no unpleasant surprises, only a lot of satisfying ones. There were scores of examples of animals' intelligence, with many interesting anecdotes and lots of descriptions of scientific studies which went into enough detail to explain why it was a scientific study and what result it showed, but without belaboring it. The studies have covered all kinds of animals from mollusks to monkeys, birds to apes, fish to elephants, and a variety of others.

The book explains how these studies differ and what they show, and how one study can or cannot be made to work with another species for an assortment of reasons. While it was thorough, I was never bored, and felt no need to skip a page or two. We learn how studies have changed along with our view of society and why older views as to the limitations of animal cognition are invalid, so it's as much a measure of change in human cognition as it is in measuring animal cognition, which is quite intriguing.

I whole-heartedly commend this as a worthy read.

The Dire Days of Wollowweep Manor by Shaenon K Garrity, Christopher Baldwin

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

The description has it that this is Nimona meets Paper Girls, but having read both of those stories, I didn't see it. This is its own story, and I dislike it when a new work is compared with a mashup of older ones. To me, it feels insulting to the author.

Often I will not even think of reading a story that's described in such a way, but fortunately I didn't let that put me off this one for once! I really enjoyed this. It was smart, original, entertaining, amusing, and fun. The mashup that this graphic novel does achieve is the impressive feat of conjoining a Gothic romance with sci-fi story about a pocket universe that acts aa a protection against the evil 'Bile' which comes from another universe and seeks to subsume everything.

The story is of Haley, a high-schooler and hopeless Gothic romance addict who gets into trouble with her teacher for turning in yet another book report about a Gothic romance. She's advised that she has to try something new or risk failing. Walking home in the pouring rain that evening (it rains a lot in this graphic!) she espies a young man struggling in the creek as she crosses the bridge, and she plunges in to help him, somehow ending up inside a Gothic romance. She learns this is a pocket universe leeching its world from the world of Gothic romance stories, so naturally there are three brooding, old-world brothers: Cuthbert, Lawrence, and Montague, a strange housemaid, and a ghost! Of course! But not everything is what you think it is, so don't jump to any conclusions.

Haley struggles through this with courage, aplomb and good humor, making some sneaky references to Gothic romances as she goes, and eventually wins out. The novel features rather ineffectual brothers and strong female characters including Haley who is a young black woman and who's deadly with an umbrella. Overall this was a fun story - a little bit on the lengthy side, maybe, if I had a criticism, but a good engaging story that I commend as a worthy read.

Python for MBAs by Mattan Griffel, Daniel Guetta

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Erratum: "We're return to this in a second" (We'll return...)

This was an impressive introduction to Python and quite the polar opposite of the confusing and unhelpful volume on Python which I reviewed earlier this month. This one did the job right and led into the topic with clear and simple terminology and examples. It explained everything as it went and offered lots of support and practice without overdoing it.

It's split into two sections. The first, by Griffel, in an admirable introduction that gets you up and running with Python. The second, by Guetta, is a workmanlike tour that takes you into real-world-inspired examples where you work business data sets and learn how to set them up, manipulate them, and employ them to extract the information you need. I was impressed by this book - by how simple and clear it was and by how well things are explained.

The only issues I ran into were those of a formatting nature which I seem to encounter quite often in Kindle-format ebooks. I did not encounter these with the PDF format version which I also checked out - it was just in Kindle. This is one reason I detest Amazon, because if your text isn't plain vanilla, their conversion process will turn it into kindling - hence the name of their format, no doubt!

The weird effects I saw in this version I have seen in other books too. It seemed like this effect, whatever it was, affected instances where the letter 'F' was combined with another letter - another 'F', or with an 'I', an 'L', or a 'T', or where a capital 'T' appeared with a lower-case 'H'. In the 'F' cases, that letter and its partner letter were omitted; sometimes a space appeared in their stead, other times the word just contracted like there were no missing letters. For example, 'overflow' would turn into 'overow', 'different' would become 'dierent', 'often' for some reason maintained a space and would read as 'o en', or sometimes 'oen'. 'Fifty-Five' would read as 'ty-ve' LOL!

Here are some examples:
"A survey by Stack Overow found that almost percent of programmers are self-taught..." (that's Stack Overflow)
"...even professional programmers constantly come across new topics and concepts that don't know but have to gure out how to learn." (That's 'they don't know' and 'figure out how')
"Yet the average uent adult knows only twenty to thirty-ve thousand words." (That's fluent, and thirty-five)
"...some of the Python data types (e.g., oats, integers, and strings)..." - yes, it was quite amusing reading about how much oats plays into the Python language. Of course, it's floats!
"A lot of what you're learning when you rst learn a programming language..." (first)
"...(think Microso Word..." (Microsoft - but insult them all you want, I'm not a fan!) "Note that the so ware we use..." (software) "...end. e front end..." (The front end)

Another problem is that sometimes numbers, written as numbers, were missing, so I'd read, "According to the Global Language Monitor, the English language currently has , ,. words. (Ever stop to think about what a . word is?" All the figures are missing, but the letters remain!

That aside, I consider this a worthy read and a great start for anyone wanting to get into python programming whether your ultimate aim is business use or not.

Hinduism by Gregory Kozlowski

Rating: WORTHY!

It's strange to see a book about an Indian religion not written by someone with an Indian name, but the author seemed to know what he was talking about and I got exactly what I wanted: a light coverage with enough detail to make me feel like I'd learned something, but not so dense that you get lost trying to listen to it while driving, so I considered this a worthy listen. The comfortable reading by Ben Kingsley helped a lot, too. Yes, it was that Ben Kingsley!

Hinduism is arguably the oldest extant religion on the planet and in its many forms has a billion or so modern-day adherents, but that doesn't mean it hasn't changed, warped, morphed, grown, or withered in that time. This book is rather short, so it cannot cover every eventuality, and that's not what I wanted anyway. I wanted an overview and I felt that's what I got, but I'm aware, as I hope other readers/listeners are, that one perspective from one author isn't necessarily an unbiased or fully-rounded one.

Without getting bogged-down in detail or going off into too many tangents (although there are some) this book covers Hinduism from the earliest beginnings to current day practice, and many aspects in between. I knew very little about Hinduism and its offshoots and sister religions, so I found this quite fascinating. I don't hold with religion myself, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in the beliefs and practices of others, and I was happy to learn about Hindu gods and worship customs and how various offshoots arose. So, as an introductory volume, this book satisfied my curiosity well, and I commend it as a worthy read.

The Perfect Theory by Pedro G Ferreira

Rating: WORTHY!

This book was much more my idea of a 'science for the masses' sort of a book. I have just reviewed A Natural History of Color negatively because it was hard to follow and too dense, and this book was the polar opposite. It had plenty of juicy detail, but it was written lightly, and in an easy style so when Sean Runnette read it to me so nicely, I was able to follow it even when driving and partly- or mostly-focused on traffic. To me that makes a big difference since I'm rarely sitting listening to books in an armchair.

The book follows the historical pursuit and discovery of relativistic physics, naturally discussing Einstein who opened this field, but there are many other contributors. Einstein, for example, is mostly closely associated with the famous formula E=mc⊃2, but the fact is that he was not the first to derive that equation!

Approximations to it had been expressed earlier by people like John Henry Poynting and Fritz Hasenöhrl, and Henri Poincaré came very close to the actual equation citing m = E/c⊃2, although he found paradoxes in his approach. Italian Olinto De Pretto also published the equivalent of Einstein's formula , effectively expressed as E=mv⊃2 where 'v' is the speed of light. Pretty much all of these people were dealing with a universe which contained aether - or so they believed. Einstein dispensed with aether because he correctly rejected its existence, but he was so widely read it is hard to believe that he was not aware of the equation before he ever wrote it down himself.

The book goes on to discuss gravity and acceleration, issues involving theoretic math versus practical physics particularly in relation to plans for developing a gravity wave detector. There are chapters on collapsing stars, singularities, black holes, and John Wheeler, the accidental radio detection of the cosmic background radiation, and dark matter. It ive sag rea thisotry fo the work, visits many of the contributors and tells a great story. I commend it fully as a worthy read or listen.

Feminist Folktales from Around the World by Ethel Johnston Phelps

Rating: WORTHY!

This is an ebook compendium of four individually published books of collected tales (Tatterhood, Kamala, Sea Girl, and The Hunter Maiden. It was great! I have to say it felt like it fell off a bit toward the end, but I don't know if that was because the later stories were not as entertaining, or because it was too many to listen to in one long string over a few days as I did. But I commend it nonetheless for having strong, smart, and even sneaky female characters throughout, lots of stories, and for being amusing as hell.

While all fairytales and folktales have common elements, I have to say that save two, I think, I had not heard any of these particular stories before, and they do come from all over. The first book, Tatterhood, contains a baker's dozen stories from places as diverse as Norway and Scotland to the Sudan and Japan and the others are similarly diverse.

I particularly liked the Sudan story, perhaps in part because it reminded me of a story about a Sudanese woman I had listened to in another audiobook (Footprints in the Dust) very recently, that was not fiction and which made a strong impression on me and gave me the makings of a story idea. My favorite of all, though, was the eponymous Tatterhood, which amused me the most, but I have to say a great deal of my enjoyment came not only from the ebullient way the tale was told, but also from the enthusiastic reading by Leslie Howard (not the British actor and film-maker!)

I liked Howard as a reader, but I can't commend her on her accents. Her Irish was off and she couldn't do Cornwall to save her life. That aside though, I liked her voice and her enthusiasm. As far as the stories go, these were as follows:

Tatterhood

1. Tatterhood
2. Unanana and the Elephant
3. The Hedley Kow
4. The Prince and the Three Fates
5. Janet and Tamlin
6. What Happened to the Six Wives Who Ate Onions
7. Kate Crackernuts
8. Three Strong Women
9. The Black Bull of Norroway
10. The Giant Caterpillar
11. The Laird's Lass and the Dobha's Son
12. The Hunted Hare
13. Clever Manka

Kamala

1. Kamala and the Seven Thieves
2. The Young Head of the family
3. The Legend of Knockmany
4. Kupti and Imani
5. The Lute Player
6. The Shepherd of Myddvai and the Lake Maiden
7. The Search for the Magic Lake
8. The Squire's Bride
9. The Stars in the Sky
10. Bucca Dhu and Bucca Gwiden
11. The Enchanted Buck
12. Mastermaid

Sea Girl

1. The Maid of the North
2. Fair Exchange
3. Wild Goose Lake
4. Gawain and the Lady Ragnell
5. The Monkey's Heart
6. The Twelve Huntsmen
7. The Tiger and the Jackal
8. East of the Sun, West of the Moon
9. The Giant's daughter
10. The Summer Quuen

The Hunter Maiden

1. Mulha
2. The Hunter Maiden
3. Elsa and the Evil Wizard
4. Maria Morevna
5. Duffy and the Devil
6. Lanval and the Lady Triamor
7. Bending Willow
8. Finn Magic
9. The Old Woman and the Rice Cakes
10. The Husband Who Stayed at Home
11. Scheherazade Retold

So plenty of entertainment there, plenty of ideas if you're looking for a topic for a novel. One of these, East of the Sun, West of the Moon has already been turned into a full-length novel by Julia Gregson. I reviewed that one favorably in January of 2017. Overall I commend this as a great source of entertainment and amusement.