Tag: ebook

Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last

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Yung-Abu, Samson. The Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last: Healthy Growth is Achieved Through Consistent Flow. Publish Nation, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I get to review interesting books.

Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last is, by phone, a 425 page book divided into two parts. Part one is an examination of what it means to be consistent. Part two delves into cultivating healthy habits or breaking unhealthy habits while focusing primarily on exercise. The entire book is jam packed with good advice and common sense (be smart about your goals) as well as some oddball tips: sleep in your gym clothes, keep your dumbbells in the kitchen). It is also an autobiography of Yung-Abu’s fitness routines and goals.
I found the narrative to be verbose. Each element is described in several different ways. Take the subject of making exercise fun, for example. Yung-Abu states that fun is a key ingredient; fun is essential; you need to incorporate a touch of fun; fun transforms everything; you need to incorporate fun into the process; provide fun; make exercise fun-focused. The word fun was mentioned a few more time in the section, but you get the point.
Once I became comfortable with the wordiness of Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency…I started to appreciate the nuggets of knowledge. I found the connection between consistency and respect to be interesting. I also loved the idea of figuring out a workout sequence – which exercises flowed easily with others.
A fair amount of Yung-Abi’s information could be seen as common sense. Healthy habits are widely known to impact overall health and cognitive brain function. Not ever exercise book will give you an anatomical breakdown of the brain, though.

Head scratcher moment – Yung-Abu said microwaves are “fundamental to keeping us in the flow of not starving.” Weird way to put it, but what concerned me more was that Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency is supposed to be a book about healthy habits. In my opinion, cooking by microwave is not healthy, never mind fundamental. Some of the sentence structures and phrasings seemed off. It indicated that English is not Yung-Abi’s dominant language or that there was some AI assistance.

My personal connection to consistency is through Tommy Rivs. He is constantly talking about making small deposits in the bank of health. If you practice consistency you will see results.

Author fact: Yung-Abu has a law background.

Imagine If…

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Vale, Lucien. Imagine If…Tupac Did Not Go To Vegas. Shattered Mythos Press, 2025.

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing. I occasionally get to review interesting books and this was one of them.

The one thing to keep in mind when reading Lucien Vale’s Imagine If series is that it is pure fiction. You are imagining an alternate ending to a well-known story. Everyone knows Tupac was murdered in Las Vegas. Vale is simply flipping the script and imagining a scenario where Pac would decide against that fateful trip. Vale cleverly finds a real life story and imagines an alternate ending. I don’t really care if the events in New York City mirror fact or not. The whole idea is to ask what if? and to be entertained. The action of Imagine If is tightly wound and fast paced. It reads like a movie with exaggerated dialogue full of gangster lingo and drama. If entertainment was Vale’s goal, he succeeded.

Confessional: one of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. It is the story of Helen’s two very different lives: the life she would lead if she had caught the train going home and the alternate where she misses it.

Author fact: Lucien Vale has also written an “Imagine” book about Bruce Lee.

Book trivia: Imagine If… is a very short 77 pages long.

Stagehand

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Aretsky, David H. Stagehand: a Backstage Pass to My Life Stories. BookBaby, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I occasionally get to review pretty interesting books. This is one of them (set to be published on April 4th, 2025).

Shame on me for judging a book by it’s title. I seriously thought this would be a peek behind the stage curtain of a career in music. No-name songwriters or big time musicians, I did not care which. Aretsky did not need to kiss and tell or name names (although for a bunch of stories, he does). I just wanted to hear about a life in the music industry from backstage. I know someone in the industry so I know how hard it is. In truth, there are a few chapters here and there about his career in entertainment, more towards the end, but for the most part, Stagehand is one man’s lament over losing the love of his life. Aretsky has been in the entertainment industry for over forty years, but it is about the eighteen year relationship with his Ex that he really wants to talk about. In truth, the stories are great. Aretsky is a natural storyteller, but the timeline is chaotic and the stories pinball around the various chapters. 1982 snuggles up to 2001 then jumps to 2019 and back to the 1990s again. It was hard to follow at times. In addition to the stories bouncing from decade to decade, they go from roommate to roommate, relationship to relationship, exotic adventure to exotic adventure. At various times I wanted to draw a timeline, just so I could make sense of what Aretsky wanted to say about his life thus far. My takeaways were: he enjoys going to the gym and staying physical fit; he has a myriad of female friends, and he moved around a lot in his younger years. And then there was the Ex…

Confessional: when David said he could write a book about his time with “Larry” I thought to myself that is the book I thought Stagehand would be. He mentioned wanting to write another book. My only advice would be to organize the stories a little more.

Setlist: As to be expected, there is a great deal of music mentioned! AC/DC, Alabama, Annie Lennox, Art Garfunkel, B-52s, “Back to the Cave”, Bad Religion, Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Beauty School Dropout”, Bette Midler, Billy Idol, Billy Joel, Blue Oyster Cult, Bobby Brown, Bonnie Raitt, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”, Bret Michaels, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, Captain & Tennille, Celine Dion, “Chances Are”, Cheap Trick, Cher, Chaka Khan, Chicago, Chick Corea, Chubby Checker, “Chuck E.’s in Love”, Clint Black, Cole Porter, “Cryin'”, the Crystals’ “Da Do Ron Ron”, Crystal Gayle, Dale Kristien, Darlene Love, Devo, Dionne Warwick, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”, Dolly Parton, Donna Summer, “Don’t Be Cruel”, Dred Zeppelin, Edgar Winter, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Eminem, Emmy Lou Harris, Eric Burdon & the Animals, Eurythmics’ “Let’s Go”, “When Tomorrow Comes”, and “Missionary Man”, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, “Everything Your Heart Desires”, “Forever in My Life”, Foreigner, Four Italian Tenors, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Avalon, GBH, Gene Simmons, “Sugar Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead, “Girls and Boys”, Gladys Knight, Guns N’ Roses, GWAR, Hall & Oates, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ “the Twist”, “Housequake”, Harry Belafonte, “He Has a Headlock on My Heart”, “Heaven Knows”, “I Want to Take You Higher”, “I Say a Little Prayer”, Iggy Pop, “I’ll Take You There”, Itzhak Perlman, “Irresistible Bitch”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, Jackie Evancho, Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire”, , Joan Jett, Jody Watley, John Entwistle, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis, Judy Garland, Kiss, “Last Time I Felt Like This”, “Love and Happiness”, Lea Salonga, Led Zeppelin, Linda Ronstadt, Lita Ford’s “Close My eyes Forever”, “Love Will Keep Us Together”, Madame X, Mariachi La Reyna de Los Angeles, Mariachi Sol de Mexico, Megadeth, Melissa Manchester, the Mentors”, Merle Haggard, Metallica, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Miles Davis, “Misty”, “Mother Popcorn”, Motorhead, Mr. Big, “My Prerogative”, Natalie Cole, Neil Sedaka, New Edition, “O Sole Mio”, Oleta Adams, “On the Edge of a Broken Heart”, “Only Women Bleed”, “Out of Touch”, Ozzy Osbourne, Pat Travers, Paul Anka, Pebo Bryson, Peter, Paul and Mary, Phantom, Rocker & Slick’s “Men Without Shame”, “Piece of Me”, the Plasmatics, Poison, the Police’s “Roxanne”, Preservation Hall Jazz Band”, Prince, Quiet Riot, the Ramones, Randy Newman, Randy Rhoads, Ratt, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Regina Bell, Rickie Lee Jones, Robert Plant, the Ramones, Robin Trower, the Rolling Stones, Ronnie James Dio, Rubin Studdard, the Runaways, Sam Kinison, Sammy Davis Jr., “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, Sebastian Bach, Sex Pistols, “Sex of It”, “Shake for the Sheik”, Sheila E., “Ship of Fools”, Skid Row, Slayer, Smokey Robinson, Social Distortion, “Star-Spangled Banner”, Stevie Wonder, Stryper, “Sweet Thing”, “Tall Cool One”, Temptations, “That’s What Friends are For”, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett, Tony Orlando, the Troggs’ “Wild Thing”, the Tubes, UFO, Vixen, Warrant, Was (Not Was)’s “Are You Okay?”, Wayne Newton, White Snake, Whitney Houston, the Who, “Whole New World”, “Wild, Wild West”, Winger, Wynonna, Wynton Marsalis, Yanni, and Ziggy Marley.

As an aside, my apologies to GNR. In Stagehand the name of the band was spelled “Guns and Roses.” Their name must have gone through some kind of autocorrect.

Jemez Mountains

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Swetnam, Thomas W. The Jemez Mountains: a Cultural and Natural History. University of New Mexico Press, 2025.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to review really cool books. This is one of them. I chose this book because I have long been fascinated with the Southwest. My sister has big dreams of settling in Taos, New Mexico. Me, I am not so sure.

There is a lot of love and respect in the pages of Jemez Mountains. It is abundantly clear that Swetnam cares deeply for the culture, history, and natural beauty of the region. He will take you to the hot springs that rival Saratoga’s. He will describe the first automobile in Jemez Springs. He will spend a lot of time at the Soda Dam. There are stories of bears, hippies, and abusive priests. He will give you a historical and scientific perspective of land use through the ages with photographs to illustrate each point. He has a serious concern about climate change and the damage it has already done to the region. There is a great deal of information packed in each essay so it was a relief when Swetnam explained that the essays of Jemez Mountains need not be read in sequential order.
As an aside, I felt a huge connection to Jemez Mountains not only because of my previously disclosed love of the Southwest, but because I uncovered other commonalities with the narrative. Swetnam matched photographs taken at the turn of the century with current ones. My hometown did something similar to illustrate how little it has changed in the last one hundred or so years. Swetnam refers to this matching of photographs as “then and now.” Inspired by the photography of my hometown, I put together an art show at my college with old photographs overlaid with current photographs and I called the project “Then and Now.”

Disclaimer: I make comments based on the assumption that special features to a book, like the same photographs, maps, or illustrations will be in the final published copy. That being said, the cover to Jemez Mountains is gorgeous. Swetnam has mentioned that there are more than one hundred photographs, maps, and drawings. My favorite photograph was of a Mack truck coming through one of the Guadalupe Box tunnels. It is impressive.

Book trivia: Jemez Mountains is set to be published in April 2025.

Author fact: Swetnam is a retired University of Arizona professor.

Small music: “O Fair New Mexico”

Their Cruel Lives

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Hart, Alastair MacDonald. Their Cruel Lives. Self Published Kindle Edition, 2024.

Reason read: Every month (or so) I get to review cool books from LibraryThing.

Confessional: in the early pages of Their Cruel Lives I had the feeling I was not supposed to like the protagonist of the story. From the onset I learned that Archibald Hennessy is supposed to be charmless, friendless, and a veritable loner. He is out of work, but not knowing his story, this made me highly suspicious of Hennessy’s intentions. I had no idea know why. I think that is the sign of an accomplished writer. Hart had the ability to make me feel something for the main character almost immediately even though it was not a positive reaction.
But. Back to the plot. Archibald Hennessy lands an overnight janitorial job at a World War I veterans home. His main responsibility is to clean up after the patients. On his very first night he befriends Herbert, a man destined to be a man of God until his father convinced him to go to war. He enjoys talking to Herbert and learning about his life. From there, Archibald meets Arthur, a man with childhood ambitions of being an Olympic athlete until the war took his legs and Norman, a simple farm boy who left home to be a sailor. Each man moved Archibald to consider what would have happened to these men had they not been gravely injured in World War I. He felt it was a travesty that all the men of the Excelsior Institute listlessly sat around without conversation or companionship; they ate barely decent food and didn’t have worthwhile entertainment beyond television. Even though Archibald was not injured in a war or had a limb amputated, he connected with the lost souls of the Excelsior Institute. It became his life’s mission to fix the broken system that did not respect its veterans.
Building upon my previous confessional: I would have loved it if Hart could have had Archibald interview Nurse Jocelyn, the antagonist of the story. Who was she? Why had she worked at the Excelsior Institute for so long and what did she think when it started to decline? I would have thought it would be a great plot twist if Archibald had been able to emotionally connect with Jocelyn and get her to have a change of heart. She could have been the heroine of the story. Also, Hart could have told us more about Archibald Hennessy. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his story? I think I would have celebrated his successes more if I had connected with him from the beginning.

Please note: I usually love to quote authors when I think they have written something especially brilliant or moving or profound. I will not be sharing anything from Their Cruel Lives due to copyright constraints.

Author fact: Hart has written a bunch of books. None of them are on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: My downloaded version of Their Cruel Lives did not include any cover design.

Playlist: “All Creatures Great and Small”.

Nine Year Cycle

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Jones, Trevor. Nine Year Cycle: a Memoir. Self Published, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I get to review amazing books. This is one such book.

If I had to give Nine-Year Cycle a one word review it would be Grace with a capital G. Grace and civility, if I were to add another word to the mix. Trevor Jones writes about a theme everyone can relate to: love or rather the desire to be loved. At face value, Nine-Year Cycle is about Trevor Jones and his two great love affairs, each lasting nine years. Digging deeper, Nine-Year Cycle is a commentary on what it meant to be a gay man at the very start of the AIDS epidemic and later, the unpredictability of online dating. These are two very dangerous ventures for homosexuals.
Jones lost his first great love to AIDS. He handled the tragedy with a considerable about of grace. Thirteen years went by before he tried to find love a second time, this time on the internet. His second relationship was far more complicated, involving immigration and religion. I don’t think it is a spoiler alert to say I was nervous for him when he first met “Angelo”. The entire time I was worried it would be a scam; that Angelo had an ulterior motive. [As an aside, I watched a documentary on a serial killer who preyed on gay men by posing as a potential lover on internet dating sites. Scary stuff.]
Readers who want a happy ending will have to make their own judgement about Nine Year Cycle. Jones is far more forgiving than I could ever be.

Author fact: Jones is known for his theater work, but he has also done movies and television appearances.

Book trivia: because I had the e-book version that I was reading on my phone, I could not see the cover design.

Playlist: Jose Carreras, the Beatles, Duran Duran, Spandeau Ballet, George Michael, Mozart’s Alleluia from Exsultate Jubilate, and Stacey Kent’s “I’m Putting All My Eggs In One Basket”.

Case Closed

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Morgan, Paul. Case Closed: Ian Bailey and the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Self-published, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I often review advance reader copies of interesting books. I wish I could say I liked this book more than I actually did.

Paul Morgan wrote Case Closed as a way to bring justice to Sophie Toscan du Plantier. He joins a long line of individuals who have written or speculated about the case. There is even a documentary on Netflix about the murder (which I have yet to see).
This is a murder case chock full of circumstantial evidence most of which pointed directly to Ian Bailey as the guilty party. Here is what we know: it is well documented that Bailey was a very violent man. It is on record that he put his partner in the hospital on more than one occasion. He lived very close to the victim but his whereabouts on the night of the murder cannot be positively confirmed as Bailey told too many versions of his activities on the night in question. Case Closed spends a great deal of time repeatedly sorting out the mountain of lies Bailey told. Morgan calls attention to these lies over 300 times (more than once every page).
By the end of the book readers know not much more than when they started. They know that the timeline of the murder does not make sense. We are told over and over again that the facts and circumstances do not add up. That much is true. The other truth to Case Closed is that it is obvious Morgan is a seething author. For whatever reason, this case is personal for him. He writes with barely contained sarcasm that is borderline unprofessional. He does not take an unbiased look at the facts, but instead repeats his speculations over and over again ad nauseum. The narrative is disorganized and clearly fueled by rage. Case in point, the questions he wants to ask Bailey’s lover. Morgan’s questions start unbiased then dissolve into accusatory and shaming. In all honesty, I would have enjoyed Case Closed if Morgan’s facts were laid out in an organized and unbiased fashion with less repetition.

As an aside, Ian Bailey was found guilty of Sophie’s murder by a French court (in absentia) in 2019. Because he could not be extradited, he never ended up serving time for the crime.
I have to admit, this book gave me pause. Were the people who were investigating this murder crooked? How did it become such a botched case? How does a bloody gate goes missing from evidence? Why were the claims of witness intimidation or evidence tampering not investigated?

Trekking in Shangri-la

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Seward, Daniel K. Trekking in Shangri-la: the Manaslu Circuit. Amazon, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I get to review interesting books. This is one such book.

A mere 90+ pages (including a few full-page color photographs), Trekking in Shangri-La is way too short. Seward could have gone on for a least a few more chapters about his adventures while trekking with his sister and brother in Nepal. Seward writes in such a humorous and honest way I was able to read the entire book in one sitting, but be forewarned – he does not delve too deeply into what he sees or hears along the trek. If you are looking for a serious travel book to learn more about Nepal culture, environment, or people this is definitely not the book for you. The photographs describe more than the narrative. Think of it as the private journal of a well off American experiencing the Himalayas for the first time with his siblings.
Confessional: I would like to know what beer Seward is drinking. 6% abv is nothing when it comes to craft beer! As an aside, I found Seward to be a bit immature. The feeling was strongest when he went looking to see if there would be a territorial squabble between the French and Germans over seats in the dining room, (and was disappointed when there wasn’t). The feeling grew when he was looking for people to bad mouth the French and bonding with them when they did. The entire group was like spoiled brats when they couldn’t get the ice cream that they wanted.

Author fact: Seward used to be a teacher.

Book trivia: Trekking in Shangri-La has some big, beautiful, colorful photographs. I would have liked to see more.

Setlist: Hank Williams’ “Hey, Good Lookin'”, Rihanna, and “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix (confessional: I cringed when I saw Seward’s spelling of the genius’s name: Jimmy Hendricks. Obviously not a fan.).

Would You Rather?

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Tooker, Michelle. Would You Rather?: True Crime Edition. Michelle Tooker, 2024.

Reason read: every now and again I get to review interesting books as part of LibraryThing’s Early Review program. This is one such book.

Would You Rather? True Crime Edition boasts of “1,000 thought-provoking questions and conversation starters on serial killers, mysteries, crimes, supernatural activities and more” and is the “ultimate true crime gift.” All that is true…for the right audience. Tooker knows a great deal about serial killers, unsolved crimes, and unexplained mysteries. Like more than the average person. There were many people (both criminals and victims) I had never heard of before. Some of the Would You Rather questions I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know the case. Thanks to Tooker, I am going to do down a rabbit hole of television shows, documentaries, and true-crime nonfiction to bring myself up to speed!

Book trivia: the illustrations are interesting, a ski mask, dead body…

One Year Without Sugar

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Hamn, Matthew. One Year Without Sugar: Unlocking the Secrets to Weight Loss. Self Published, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I review interesting books.

I have to be honest. I don’t know if I would buy this book if I discovered it and happen to flip through it in a bookstore. The photographs and daily diet journal are somewhat repetitious. I couldn’t identify some of the foods and a couple of the photographs were blurry. If you are not familiar with the wild fit program you will not lose the overall context, but the knowledge would be a nice frame of reference.
Confessional: I am still not finished reading One Year Without Sugar. So far my favorite parts are when Hamn includes interesting facts about himself. In this way he connects with his readers very well. For example, he is sheep herder who goes into the mountains for two to three days at a time and he gained a bit of weight after giving up cigarettes. (That makes total sense because smoking is such an oral activity! As a hand to mouth activity putting food in one’s mouth is a natural substitution for smoking.) I appreciate his personal narrative and his motivation more than the journal of what he ate. His journey is an inspiration! Confessional: I did learn a little bit. For example, the fifty-six different names for sugar. If I ever want to cut out even twenty-five percent of the sugar I consume I now know what to look for in the list of ingredients.

Kennedy’s Brain

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Mankell, Henning. Kennedy’s Brain.

Reason read: October is national crime month.

Tragedy trails Louise like an unwanted stray dog. She lost her mother when she was only six years old. She has all but lost her father to grief and alcohol in the years since her mother’s tragic accident. Louise’s marriage vanished into thin air and for the last twenty-plus years she has barely seen her ex-husband, despite having a son together. She barely believes Aron exists. Now, she is facing the unexplained demise of her only son, Herik, found dead in his bed. Like Verona in The Perfect Daughter by Gillian Linscott, Henrik is found with a belly full of drugs, and with no visible signs of foul play, his death is deemed a suicide. And like Nell in The Perfect Daughter, Louise cannot find truth the forensic evidence. She refuses to believe her only son committed suicide. So begins an epic journey to uncovered what really happened to Henrik. From Athens to Barcelona and Mozambique, Louise hunts for explanations.
My one complaint about Kennedy’s Brain was the unnatural dialogue between characters. I know Mankell is using his characters to fill historical background and give context to current situations, but they, the characters, offer way more information than is realistic in their conversations. Maybe something is lost in the translation? Here is an example, Adelinho accuses Ricardo of talking too much but when speaking of his friend, Guiseppe, Adelinho reveals Guiseppe is Italian, is friendly, and visits now and then. Adelinho also says Guiseppe likes the solitude, is responsible for the navvies building roads, likes to get drunk, and goes back to Maputo every month. Why tell a stranger all of this? Another example, Lucinda, dying of AIDS needs to tell Louise something important, but she says she is tired. She’ll share the rest when she has rested. She then goes on to talk about a few other things of little consequence.

As an aside, I had trouble with Louise’s character. What archaeologist injures herself on a shard of pottery uncovered at a dig site and why is she allowed to keep the shard as a gift for her son? That didn’t sit right with me.

Line I Liked, “The horrors in store left no warning” (p 120).

Author fact: Mankell was only 67 years old when he passed away.

Book trivia: Kennedy’s Brain was made into a Swedish movie. We watched a trailer for it and my husband was not impressed.

Playlist: Bach. Note: there was a lot of music in Kennedy’s Brain but nothing specific that I could add here.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Swede(n), Isn’t It?” (p 222).

Summit Visions

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Fraser, Graeme. Summit Visions. Self published, 2024.

Reason read: every now and then, I receive a book to read for the Early Review Program from LibraryThing. I never know what I’m going to get…

If you were to think of Summit Visions as a journey, the number of pages would equal the number of miles to travel on said journey. Imagine setting out on this trek of more than five hundred miles and every two miles there is a diversion, a speed bump of superfluous information or comments about something you will read more about later. I wish Fraser kept his examples grounded in the Nashua Millennium Big 5 Challenge instead of delving into diamond mining ventures or the the struggles of being a corporate lawyer. I know I would have enjoyed Summit Visions more if it did not morph into a preachy self-help book. Fraser toggled between his personal career goals as an entrepreneur and lawyer and the athletic goals of an elite athlete. The narrative became unfocused with side stories about the eating habits of the Arsenal team, yacht racing, climbing Thaba Ntlenyana, tax lawyer quotations, information surveillance, what climate change means for the Maldives Islands, a mini memoir about Fraser’s experiences crossing the finish line at every event, lots of disparaging comments about his physique, a plug for reading the Bible, and a myriad of analogies. I lost track of the number of parenthetical statements (there were a lot!). All of the stories are inspiring but a bit longwinded. So much so that I had to chuckle when Fraser cautioned against information overload. His humor was and fascinating stories when on-topic were not enough to keep me engaged. I gave up after 300 pages.

Ordinary Chaos of Being Human

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Richards, Marguerite. The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human: True Stories. Soul-baring Moments. No Apologies. Leave It Better Books, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I sometimes get to review interesting and thought-provoking books. This is one such book.

Right off the bat, I have to draw attention to something both Bina Shah and Marguerite Richards wrestled in the beginning of Ordinary Chaos: the conundrum of whether or not to draw attention to the Muslim voice. Between the foreword and introduction the word “Muslim” is written almost forty times and yet Shah toyed with removing it. The concept of being Muslim matters but Shah and Richards were conflicted about its place and purpose within Ordinary Chaos. It is the point of the book despite the contrary challenge put forth to the reader: do not see these authors as one religion or another; see them as human without any other label. I would argue that in order to do that one must tell the story without the identifiers, only reveal them at the end; only then ask if the detail really mattered to the tenor and tone of the message. Otherwise, the connection to a religious or cultural belief does matter to the success of the story. For example, stories such as “Those Eyes of Hers” could be told by anyone. The concept of letting go of a drug that had been a security blanket or a crutch for an ailment that didn’t exist. The human connection is there regardless of religion, gender or sexual orientation, or economic status. When we are taken out of our comfort zones we truly learn about ourselves and that is called growth.
Some of the stories will fill you with nostalgia for an irreplaceable time. Some will leave you inexplicably sad. I could not read Ordinary Chaos for very long. I still have a third of the book to read.

As an aside, do not be overwhelmed by the number of pages of Ordinary Chaos. In the electronic version there was at least a blank page or two between each story. Every story is incredibly short.

Book trivia: before each story Richards provides a short biography. The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human was first published in 2019 by Penguin Random House.

Playlist: Metallica, Michael Jackson, Googoosh, Sin Dios, “Elephant Love Medley”, “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn & John,

The Fundamental Pizza Cookbook for Beginners

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Adventurer, Bram Cuisine. The Fundamental Pizza Cookbook for Beginners: Over 1,800 Dietary Recipe Combinations: Guide for Conventional and Woodfire Ovens: Step By Step Instructions – Dough to Tasty Sides, Pizza or Calzone. 2024.

Bram Cuisine Adventurer used ChatGPT to write The Fundamental Pizza Cookbook for Beginners: Over 1,800 Dietary Recipe Combinations: Guide for Conventional and Woodfire Ovens: Step By Step Instructions – Dough to Tasty Sides, Pizza or Calzone and it shows from the title to the conclusion. While there is some great information in The Fundamental Pizza Cookbook for Beginners, it is only 142 pages long and much of the space is taken up with huge font, illustrations, and redundancies. Here are some examples:

  • The header for each section is in a large font and repeated on every page. Same for the footer (page numbers).
  • The introduction reiterates the table of contents; hardly any new information there.
  • The list of tools could include the disposable tools to utilize space and cut down on the repetition of a separate list.
  • Most of the directions are listed twice (example: “Add feta: sprinkle with crumbled feta”).
  • Troubleshooting is listed twice (on pages 22 and 137) with more information being on page 137.
  • Nutrition information could have been listed at the end of each recipe in a smaller font. Easier to find for each dish and would take up less space.

If you take out the sides, calzones, and drinks there are even less pages dedicated to the art and creativity of pizza making. This could be a great book for beginnings, but there were too many missed opportunities. Noted is a lack of information that could have been helpful to novices (since the introduction ensures that even a novice can make a pizza by using this book):

  • There is no explanation of instant versus active yeast or even why that matters. Going a step further, it would have been helpful to explain what happens when yeast, warm water, and sugar are combined; and what to look for after ten minutes or so (foamy and bubbly). Knowing the signs of good yeast can save wasted time and ingredients later.
  • There are inconsistent translations. Quattro Formaggi is translated, but what about Capricciosa or Funghi?
  • What Adventurer does not tell you is that you cannot troubleshoot the dough problems with the dough you just made. For problems like dough not rising or being too tough, for example, for the next time make sure your yeast is fresh, your water is not too hot or cold, or that you knead the dough for too long.
  • This isn’t talked about at all, but using copper mats or grilling your pizza are also good cooking options.

Feral Creatures in Suburbia

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Liebhart, D. Feral Creatures in Suburbia. 9:25 books, 2024.

Reason read: an Early Review book from LibraryThing.

A single mother trying to wrangle a violent teenage son, a girl trying to cope with intense school bullying threatens suicide enough times to land herself in a psych ward, employers abusing drugs, a doctor battling two aggressive cancers; we have all been there before. We have all had bullies at one time or another. We know people with incurable diseases or inconsiderate neighbors. We have all known a deep and abiding love. Secrets, miscommunications, assumptions, jealousies, they are common to us all.
Even though each chapter was in the voice of a different character I kept getting them confused. The chapters were short which didn’t give me a lot of time to get to know and fully absorb each person.
A small disappointment was the ability to only get inside Myra’s head. She was the only teenager with her own voice. We also got to see life from her mother’s point of view. Why not add Logan’s voice in contrast to his mother, Julie’s? Not knowing Logan’s motives kept assumptions at an all time high. Maybe Liebhart wanted it that way, considering the end.

The episode with the not broken-no wait-broken arm was curious.

Music: Chopin, Vivaldi, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne.