Stay Vivid

 Hello Dog Lovers,  Book 26: Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus (8/10) Premise: The history of the Rabies virus and how it has affected the culture, social, and pets around the world.  This book is a wild ride. It includes Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Edgar Allen Poe, Greek myths, and Old Yeller. Rabies is a horrible virus that has nearly 100% kill rate when people and animals get it. Even though many animals can get it, this book puts most of it's focus on dogs. Why? Maybe the cultural influence of Old Yeller, or perhaps because in many other countries dogs are not treated with the same "part of the family" mentality as in other countries and are often kept outside full time and not vaccinated which can cause them to catch and spread rabies.  I will say I found how Rabies and rabidity in general finding it's way into cultural through books, movies, and tv was the most interesting. As far back as the Greek epics they used descriptions...

 Hello Complicated people,   Book 25: Cold-Blooded: A True Story of Love, Lies, Greed, and Murder (6/10) Premise: The twisted intertwining lives of Larry and Elisa McNabney.  The beginning of this story is a very twisted history, jumping from person to person without any real hint at who the important people will be. Once the slurry of people's histories are over we are stuck with three main people. First Larry McNabney, legal ace, who started his own business. His wife Elisa, who runs the business much of the time. Finally, Sarah, an assistant in the business who is good friends with Elisa.  Okay Larry, Elisa, and Sarah. Larry starts showing horses and turns out to be really good at it and could possibly get National Armature Champion. He is also an alcoholic and possible drug addict... probable drug addict. Elisa, which is just one of her over 30 aliases, is constantly stealing money from the company while hiding it from Larry. Finally Sarah over a decade youn...

 Hello Wild Spirits,  Book 24: Alone on the Wall (8/10) Premise: Alex Honnold's professional climbing career finishing with his free solo climb of El Capitan. This book takes an in depth look at the career of the one of the world most famous climbers. It was written both by Alex and David Robert. Alex gives his first person perspective, while Robert fills in the gaps of what other climbers and people around him wrote or said.  Free climbing is when a climber goes up a wall with no rope or gear besides a chalk bag. They are not allowed to use any manmade holds on the wall. This is where Alex exceled. The book covers many of Alex's climbs as a professional climber, and part of North Face's team. He set speed climbing records on several occasions, and is generally considered one of the best climbers in the world.  This book spans several years but near the end falls into the grove of Alex agreeing to do the movie "Free Solo", and deciding he wants to free solo El Cap...

 Hello Sober Citizens,  Book 23: Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany (9/10) Premise: Heroine, Cocaine, Vitamin, and Meth use in Nazi Occupied Germany.  This book could be pretty easily broken into two main themes. First, drug use for the citizens and soldiers of Nazi Germany, and Second, the health and drug use of Hitler. Both very well mixed together but I am going to separate them.  Citizen and Soldiers. So during the start of the second world war Germany was cut off from many of it's natural supplies and provinces to get normal drugs and medicines. So they went full mad scientist. Creating syncretic drugs. Cocaine and Heroine take a small part in this book, but are generally just prescribed medications, with the Nazi stance that being addicted to something made you 'less than'. However, especially for soldiers there was a wonderful drug given to them called Meth. This allowed the soldiers to stay up for days on end and fight with a fury that the allies could not match....

 Hello Horror Fanatics,  Book 22: The Amityville Horror (5/10) Premise: The Lutz family moves into a house for 28 days before leaving because the paranormal activity is more than they can handle.  This book is touted as both fiction and non-fiction. But most likely it is an elaborate lie to sell copies of this book. Now that that's out of the way let's dive in. The house in Amityville where this takes place was the scene of a horrific murder, the adult son killed his parents and siblings one year earlier. However the place was large and very affordable so the Lutz's decided to move in anyway.  They have the house blessed by their old priest, and start to move their stuff in. Soon they all notice changes in each others behaviors. The children are louder and more rude, the husband has a shorter temper and is always cold, and the wife never wants to leave the house but doesn't feel safe their alone, and the dog sleeps a lot. If you've seen any haunted house movie or ot...

 Hello doppelgängers,  Book 21: The Other Emily (9/10) Premise: 10 years ago Emily went missing, presumed to be a victim of a now captured cereal killer but was never found. Suddenly Emily's doppelganger appears in front of Emily's ex-boyfriend David.  We once again are diving into fiction, with one of my all time favorite authors Dean Koontz. Ten years after Emily had disappeared on a highway after her car broke down, David still had not moved on. One year upon visiting the town where he and Emily had lived before she vanished. David was surprised when he saw Emily at the bar as she was 10 years ago when she disappeared. Upon approaching her she said her name was Maddison. However in every way Maddison was the same as Emily.  Diving into this mystery David started investigating Maddison, while at the same time he started to date her, as she was, in every way imaginable the exact same as the love he had lost a decade before. In this digging David also found that anot...

 Hello Environmentalists,  Book 20: Trespassing Across America: One Man's Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland. (6/10) Premise: An almost 30 year old author travels the route of the proposed XL pipe line.  The book starts in Alaska where the author Ken Ilgunas is working at an oil refinery. He bounces between lots of different jobs and trips. Mentioning he has hitchhiked before, that is how he starts this journey. From Denver up into Ontario, Ken hikes, and hitchhikes to where the oil for the pipeline is coming out of the ground. He then starts his journey hiking south towards Texas.  Most of his time is spent walking through fields, hopping over fences, and doing his best to avoid property owners, cows, and roads. He talks about the beauty of the heartland and does a lot of introspective thinking. Eventually when he gets towards the end of his journey he starts having to take roads more often for safety and legality. Part way into ...

 Hello Adventurers,  Book 19: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (8/10) Premise: A polar expedition gets stuck and eventually abandoned on an island of ice, they must survive and escape with no way to contact the outside world.   Slightly over a century ago the artic was a mostly unexplored area. So explorers were trying to be the first to make it to the center, cross the entire continent of Antarctica and more. Shackleton and his crew of 27 sailors were on one such voyage when there ship became trapped in a sheet of ice. With no way out they decided to winter in the ship and hopefully resume sailing in the summer. However after month of being trapped in ice, the ice started pushing in towards the ship and finally destroyed it. The crew was able to rescue there 3 smaller life boats and made the decision to head towards the nearest populated land, nearly 900 miles away.  The next several months were spent in a mixture of moving their possessions including ...

 Hello Caffeinated Humans,  Book 18: Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World (8/10) Premise: The History of Caffeine and it's effects on the modern human.  Caffeine is an large part of many peoples lives, the most consumed drug in the modern world, and one of the only drugs we freely give to children. Soda, Coffee, and Tea are the most common sources of caffeine, although a short search through my house shows chocolate covered pre-workouts, a chocolate spread, and a chocolate covered espresso bean snack. However in the beginning there were only two, coffee and tea. This book heavily focuses on coffee, the author's Michael Pollan's medium of choice.  The author gives up caffeine for several months while writing this book. He talks about the the withdrawal effects and it's effect on him. Loss of concentration and motivation after years of consuming caffeine daily. But caffeine has positive effects, it can up brain activity to help concentrate on specific tasks....