"Small Green Spokescritter's Secrets for Happiness"

You're Only Human: A Guide to Life by The Gecko
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So the day after posting two reviews with the disclaimer that one was for a book read two weeks ago, "I don't want to create the impression that, even in retirement, i can read two books in a day. I'm an appreciative reader, not a fast one," here I am having read another book - in about an hour! This book reminds me of the impulse-purchase-inviting little books that Price Stern Sloan used to have displayed at bookstore and other checkout counters. You don't expect great literature or the actual secret of life, but some of them fulfill the promise of some light-hearted diversion. The Gecko comes through and made me smile and sometimes laugh out loud. It was a beautiful sunny autumn day today, so that may have upped my appreciation. If it was a "SAD" day I might have reacted more gloomily and critically; hard to say. One of my favorite lines is in the Thank You section at the end of the book: "Raymond McKinney, who taught me the secret to writing a lot of pages in a short amount of time is to focus oh look a butterfly." It was a perfect example of his advice on page 140 to "Laugh more often. Especially at yourself."

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Loved the canine, the hero and the book!

Suspect by Robert Crais
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have always loved reading Robert Crais’ fiction but this one was so good I finished it with tears streaming down my face. The story of a police officer and a canine “Veteran,” both struggling with PTSD and a world of evildoers, is uplifting and exciting. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.

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A lot of reading, well worth it.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suppose it is no surprise that the (retired) librarian read all the footnotes, the author’s message at the end, both appendixes/appendices, and the entire bibliography. What is unusual is that each of these contained some of the best gems in this excellent, thought-provoking book. This was written nine years ago, but headlines in the last week underline the difficulty of knowing what to make of “global warming.” I stood up and cheered when Crichton cited another favorite near the end of Appendix I, “Why Politicized Science is Dangerous,” “In my view there is only one hope for humankind to emerge from what Carl Sagan called ‘the demon-haunted world’ of our past. That hope is science.” This was fantastic.

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