3 Book Beverage

Finally! I reinstated my library card, and am able to enjoy the world of reading without draining my wallet or driving to a bookstore (cause, you know, I don't have a bookstore in my area anymore...sniffle). And I came to a conclusion.

The Library is heaven.

Why? Because it holds books.

And books are the key to a whole 'bother world of imagination and information and possibility.

And I get to enjoy that....for free.

Too many of us take it for granted that we have this wealth of information and knowledge and creativity just AVAILABLE to us, while girls like Malala Yousafzai have to fight every day for the right to an education, to books, to knowledge! The idea that books and novels could become the stuff of urban legend is frightening. People, we can't forget just how amazing books are!

Forgive me. This is not a lecture.

I'll admit, I've slacked in the book area, which is only hurting me...so this surge of reading I've been going through is to make up for lost time.....and I was dearly rewarded.

- Micro by Michael Crichton

A company called Nanigen Microtechnologies has created a groundbreaking invention of microscopic robots...with blades. They have also found that research in the Oahu forest in Hawaii have uncovered millions of new bacteria species and organisms that could hold vital properties for the human body. Seven graduates are picked from Cambridge to explore this forest and all it has to offer. But one of the graduates has detected foulplay from this billion-dollar company, and once caught, the head of the company forces the graduates into the forest--after shrinking them down to a size smaller than a wasp. Now, the graduates must find a way to survive the suddenly fearful environment, using their own knowledge in their own fields.

This is one of the most disturbing concepts I've read, and that's with Prey in existence. Crichton pulls no punches when describing the most graphic violence between an army of ants and an unsuspecting victim, or the sadistic company owner and his second-in-command. But it illuminates a sad truth--everything, humanity and otherwise, has these abilities and these tendencies. It's a horrific scene, the centipede charging at the graduates, but it is just as horrible when the President of Nanigen sends hit men to kill one of the graduates. There is one glaring difference--for Nature, there is no moral awareness; it is how it is. For humanity, we know the morals and ethics. Those who choose to go the barbaric route have no excuse.

This is definitely a must-read for Crichton fans. A well-done sendoff for the man. RIP.

- No One In The World by E. Lynn Harris

It's kind of ironic that the two books on this list are by exceptional authors who have both died. This author, E. Lynn Harris, was an openly gay male whose books generally covered the topic on down-low, in the closet males. I've read a few of his books before and have always found myself sucked into the plot twists and turns. In this posthumous release, Harris writes about two twin brothers who were separated at birth, wen down very different paths, and meet up again in the strangest of circumstance.
Cobi Winslow was the lucky brother, picked out by rich parents and raised to be an intelligent and powerful attorney, who relished putting away "thugs" and "low-lifes." Eric was the boy who stayed in the foster system, and ended up in jail for stealing a car, while his fiancé left him and tried to take his daughter away. When Cobi's parents admit to him that he has a brother, Cobi instantly tracks him down, and Eric is not the man Cobi had hoped (aka he is the kind of man Cobi and his sister look down on) but blood is thicker than prejudice, and eventually Cobi and Eric learn that they are two sides of the same coin.
There is SO MUCH MORE to this plot than I'm telling, but I don't want to ramble, and I'm scared of spoiling the story. Just know that it was all the right amounts of drama and emotion and sexiness you would hope for from Harris. Everybody's got a secret. You think Scandal is scandalous? It's so intense, I can follow every high and low in each of the characters' lives as if I'm actually in there with them, like in that moment when--NOPE! NOP! NOT SPOILING!

- The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips

This book was in fact finished today. It's the only novel that Philips has written to date, and it hit home for me in more ways than I can explain.
Its set around the time of Brown v. Board Of Education, in rural Parkersfield, where the light-skinned Rozelle Quinn lives with her TEN children, all with different, and absent, fathers. The darkest child, Tangy Mae, serves as the narrator, as she describes life at the bottom of her mother's list, and yet the one her mother holds to the tightest. At fourteen, Tangy Mae is forced to clean white people's homes in the daytime and "service men, white and black, at the 'Farmhouse.'" While her other siblings have found marriage as an escape route from their abusive and possessive mother, Tangy Mae has school, working hard to achieve the education that will send her on a better path, far away from the woman she loves and hates at the same time.
It's a touchy subject, even to this day, and those who have dealt with the issue of mental illness, family dysfunction, and colorism, will find this book to hit home in many ways. But it handles the issues in a realistic and eloquent manner; Tangy Mae weaves through her conflicting emotions with a finesse beyond her years, indicating that she's had to grow up in a short amount of time, at too young an age. The dynamic between her and siblings rises and falls with their mother's moods, ranging from bright and cheery to downright frightening. And it all comes together in a climax I didn't see coming.
It's not a hunky dory kind of book, but I think if you gave fit to a group of people, the discussion it sparks could be thought-provoking and impactive.


So there's my three-book beverage. What are some books you're reading this fall?

- CDM