Bookquarium

Heeeeere's Amy!  Picture this. It's 1980. I'm not even alive yet. The hair is continuing to defy gravity. Computers and technology are out there, but they're remarkably slow. You're still almost a half decade away from AOL and the fabulous dial up internet. Michael Crichton decided to write a technology-heavy book about killer gorillas and the search for diamonds in the Congo. Dudes, I just finished this book, and I still don't understand Crichton's need for diamonds. It's got something to do with technology, and powering things? I'll admit I skimmed a lot of the rambling bits when he really got going about the tech stuff. Congo, as an adventure read, was fun. I am all for really smart gorillas tearing humans to bits. Amy, the good gorilla who joins our plucky (and obnoxious) adventurers on their quest to discover what happened to the first team, is a fun character, who drinks cocktails and smokes cigars (even though she's a gorilla?), an...

Y'all know I LOVE me a good natural disaster book. Epic floods? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? Sign me up. The Waters Will Come  was published in late 2017, but it only crossed my radar late last year, so of course I JUMPED at the chance to read it. It's a nonfiction book that looks in depth at global warming and it's effects on ocean levels. More importantly, how humans all over the world will be super boned when the water levels rise because it effects so much. Bye, Florida. Adios, most of Italy. See you later, normal life as we know it now. The book was a nice mix of "here's actual facts about things that happened and the policies and decisions that made it this way" and "here is a very plausible scenario that will happen if we let things continue as they are." While this book doesn't exactly inspire hope for the future, it does slap us in the face enough to want to take action, which is hopeful in itself, I think. Love ya, Lady P.

The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (And What We Can Do About Them)  Author: Lucy Jones Genre: Nonfiction (disasters!) Publisher: Doubleday Books Publication Date: April 17, 2018 Rating: 4 stars GoodReads ~~~ Amazon Description:  Natural disasters emerge from the same forces that give our planet life. Earthquakes have provided us with natural springs. Volcanoes have given us fertile soil. A world without floods would be a world without rain. It is only when these forces exceed our ability to withstand them that they become disasters. Together, these colossal events have shaped our cities and their architecture; elevated leaders and toppled governments; influenced the way we reason, feel, fight, unite, and pray. The history of natural disasters is a history of ourselves. Review:  I super love natural disasters. I am, in fact, a supernatural disaster geek. (This stems from a life time of never actually having been in one.) So I saw this book o...