Jon Krakauer began researching this book after learning that a friend of his had been sexually assaulted twice in her life, both times by “non-strangers”. Krakauer, like many people, had always pictured rapists as men with masks hiding in the bushes, pouncing on random women. In his research, he learned how incredibly often that women are raped by people they know — either closely or as acquaintances — and how seldom those rapists are brought to justice. He chose to focus his attention on a series of rapes that […]
Put this in your bug-out bag
My dad and I have deep love for really, really bad movies — especially those featuring monsters and/or explosions. I bought him How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack for Christmas this year, and he lent it to me once he finished. It’s hysterical, and provided excellent relief from the other book I just finished, which was dark and decidedly not funny. “NOTE: In the rare situation a megatsunami washes a T. rex into your path, you won’t […]
“Pluto is dead” –Mike Brown
This book was funny, interesting, and while I loved learning about the Pluto stuff, I also think Mike Brown ought to try his hand at a parenting book. “Pluto was part of their mental landscape, the one they had constructed to organize their thinking about the solar system and their own place within it. Pluto seemed like the edge of existence. Ripping Pluto out of that landscape caused what felt like an inconceivably empty hole.” Astronomer Mike Brown has spent most of his career believing […]
‘It’s the kind of winter that will remind us we are mortal,’ he said. ‘Mortal and alone.’
Cecilia Ekbäck’s Wolf Winter is one of those novels that tries to balance a real life crime with supernatural elements, like most of what I’ve read by Jennifer McMahon. And like Jennifer McMahon’s novels, it’s….mostly successful. “You have this trait… of looking for the mysterious and letting yourself be overcome.” Set in Swedish Lapland in 1717, Maija, Paavo and their daughters Frederika and Dorotea have arrived at a new homestead, hoping to find more success than they did in their native Finland. Soon after moving to the mountain, they realize […]