Category: Reviews

[Paul] It was a moment that had been in the making for a long time; it shouldn’t have been any more horrifying than the ones that had come before. The worst step had already been taken long ago.

Engrossing domestic drama set in the time surrounding the USA’s only fatal nuclear accident. It was more “soapy” than I was expecting, but the characters were well-written and I learned a lot about an event that has largely been forgotten.

[Paul] In his locker he taped a Robert E. Lee quote: “I do not trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.” Amazingly, as the years went by, he won the job, the girl, and an amount of respect that seemed neither stingy nor extravagant: It seemed just right. But like many hard-forced things his veneer was delicate, and he found that he became easily panicked. He’d fought so hard for what he had that he could imagine countless ways it might be taken away.

This book is primarily a domestic drama, bookended by chapters about the events leading up to and following the accident. It was like Army Wives, if it were set in the 1960s. The broken nuclear reactor takes a backseat to the trials of military marriage in the middle of the book.

[Paul] Paul felt a sudden stab of pity for them all. They could die for this nothingness, this shit hole. It was their life, this lifting and sweating and shuffling and dodging, this penning of warnings that no one would read, this making of endless excuses. It was a service no one would love them for, and they were veterans of nothing more than their own blank, tenuous days.

The CR-1 accident in the book is based on the SL-1 accident, the only fatal nuclear power accident in the USA. There was some sensationalism surrounding the original event, but the author handles it respectfully. At the end of this review are some resources I found about the actual accident. After watching some of the old videos, I have to say that the author did an amazing job setting the scene and describing the reactor! Everything looked exactly how I imagined it.

[Nat] “I feel like a piece in a china cabinet, you know? Like I just sit still, waiting for something. Like I haven’t taken a deep breath in years.”

I did love the characters and I got really involved in their stories. Even the small children are realistic! The chapters alternate between three characters: Nat, Paul, and Jeannie. The chapters are long, so you have time to get settled into each character. Nat is a California girl at heart. When she married Paul Collier, she left her beloved San Diego and ocean for a transient military life. The book opens as they and their two toddlers are moving to Idaho Falls, a town whose main claims to fame are a waterfall and a Mormon temple. A brand new J.C. Penney is an exciting event in this town. Nat feels cooped up in the house and is frustrated with her lack of freedom and her husband’s lack of communication. Her husband Paul is a reserved, by-the-books type guy. He has a strong sense of morality and is frustrated by people who don’t live by the same code. Paul feels somewhat guilty about bringing his family to such an isolated area, but his mind is mostly occupied with work issues. Paul works at the CR-1 Reactor, a place where a “can-do attitude” is a substitute for safety. There is a serious problem with the reactor, but management doesn’t want to draw attention to it. On his first day at work, Master Sergeant Mitch Richards urges him to defy his army training and to verbally tell him of reactor irregularities rather than documenting them in the logs. Jeannie is Mitch Richard’s wife and a busybody. She is frustrated with her husband’s drinking and womanizing. Her main goal is to get Mitch to retirement, which is only three years away, so their family can finally have some stability. It is all on her shoulders because he is complacent and not concerned about it one bit! There is also Esrom, a friendly local cowboy, who befriends Nat at her loneliest point.

[Jeannie] Their army life felt like an endless parade in which Mitch was a large, slow-moving float and Jeannie every other performer, running alongside, cheering, shooting off confetti, waving banners and flags, calling attention to his every move as if it were fantastic and exciting and rare.

Jeannie’s chapters were the most comedic. In her opening scene, she is hosting a dinner party and trying to maintain composure as people keep going off the expected script. The way she covertly shames Nat for her dinner contribution was hilariously cruel! “Should we keep passing around those potatoes?” Jeannie managed. “And we have this meatloaf that Nat so kindly brought, but no one’s even taken a slice of it yet.” She held it aloft; one whole olive had slid greasily to the side of the loaf, where it jutted like a wayward nipple.”

The portrayal of the ups-and-downs of Nat and Paul’s marriage was honest. This is a marriage between a free-spirited woman and a straight-laced (though slightly more progressive than most) military man in a very conservative era, so the issues they dealt with felt very real. I could understand both Paul’s struggles to be a good person and fears of losing everything and Natalie’s desperation for freedom and independence. I did get frustrated with Natalie’s willful ignorance regarding her friendship with Esrom! She had romanticized it so much, that she couldn’t even see straight anymore. She was the character that was least reflective of her mistakes because if she thought about it, she would have to make some unwanted changes. [spoiler]I feel 90% sure that Esrom would have puppy-dogged after her forever, so the permanent distance was for the best for both of them![/spoiler]

[Nat] She was both flattered and embarrassed when he called her his angel. She knew she was supposed to be his angel, because men were inherently unstable and needed a woman’s love the way a pilot needed a compass. Men were the providers and the doers and the protectors of everything—finances, morals, property—and yet there was something off about them, everybody knew it, something that needed to be sheltered from certain realities, such as childbirth or the sight of a woman without support garments. It had always puzzled Nat, this way she was supposed to treat men, because it didn’t seem to fit Paul and it felt foreign to her. And yet they were becoming it, as if it were inevitable. Distance was making them proper, and making her his angel.

I didn’t like the missing girl→creepy youth pastor→Natalie’s teenage years story train. The missing girl part threw me off the most. It kept being mentioned, but it wasn’t really going anywhere. Then it turned out to be a roundabout way to introduce Natalie’s teenage years. I also thought there were a few incidents at the end [spoiler](Paul’s breakout and the subsequent car accident)[/spoiler] that went too much into crazy high-jinks territory for me, in a story that already has built-in drama. But as far as crazy high-jinks go, it wasn’t too crazy. These are minor things in an overall engrossing story.

This will be of http://appalachianmagazine.com/2014/12/15/the-story-of-appalachias-buda-motor-cars/ rx tadalafil help to you if some of the side effects it can have are:* Increased blood pressure* Diarrhea* Stomach upset* Headache* Vision impairment* Effect on the hearing capacity of a person, Flushing of the face, Priapism. These can be sites that are known to friends cialis 20mg no prescription and relatives. Anxiety comes and goes in a number of cases of one or more types of sexual dysfunctions such as frequent nightfall, semen leakage, erectile dysfunction, cheapest cialis india premature ejaculation and low sexual drive or loss of libido. The notion that age super cialis cheap degeneration – including the loss of good majority and simply development of maximum insomnia. 7. The Longest Night is about uncontrolled chain reactions, in more than one sense. One thing leads to another as both the reactor and the tensions in the Collier’s marriage explode. The characters have to make difficult decisions to protect their families and some of those decisions come too late. The book also explores the pressures of late 1950s/early 1960s morality on a marriage in a military setting. It felt stifling to read about these women’s lack of control over their lives and society’s passive acceptance of it. Even though this book is set over 50 years ago, there is still some recognizable behavior! The following quote reminded me of my community Facebook page, though men are also active participants: ” these women were busybodies; their hawk eyes scanned the neighborhood for anything out of place, for any change, for any event that was, by other people’s standards, not an event at all. Someone’s garbage can lid laying to the side and not securely clamped on the can: That was an event. The lone beep of a car horn at two P.M.: That would be considered an event, and a mystery.”

I’d recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a solid story about the ups-and-downs of marriage, but also likes interesting historical settings. Last year I read A Place We Knew Well, where a family drama and a Cold War event reach a breaking point at the same time. I wasn’t as attached to the characters in that book, but it might be worth a read if you are interested in the time period.

___________________________________________________
Here are the resources about the actual incident I used to verify my visualizations.
1961 Nuclear Reactor Meltdown : The SL-1 Accident – United States Army Documentary (animation at 3:45)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajkh8gtztIU 
1961 Nuclear Reactor Meltdown : The SL-1 Accident – Educational Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKcWM-yBkI
“Prompt Critical” – A Short Film Based on the SL-1 Incident – by James Lawrence Sicard (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPfXBqXJ_o4
Proving the Principle – A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, 1949-1999 (Chapters 15 and 16 about SL-1 incident)
http://www4vip.inl.gov/publications/ (Chapter 15, page 11, illustration of the reactor)

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

4.5 Stars – 4 for the overall book and 5 for the audiobook experience. A tear-jerker, several times over. Emotional historical fiction set in France, about two very different sisters and the often forgotten role of women during World War 2. The audiobook is nominated for a 2016 Audie Award in the Best Fiction and Best Female Narrator categories.

Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.

The Nightingale wasn’t on my “To Read” list, but I received a copy of the audiobook from the Ford Audiobook Club and decided to give it a shot. It is a long one, clocking in at 17 hours and 26 minutes. I wasn’t interested in the book at first because I thought it would be more of a romance. The romance-related scenes did end up being my least favorite parts, but they were few and far between. They definitely aren’t the first thing I remember when thinking about this book. This book is really about women’s role in the war, the stories that are not always told. Kristin Hannah was inspired to write this book after stumbling upon the story of Andrée de Jongh, a 19-year-old Belgian woman and member of the Belgian Resistance. De Jongh organized the Comet Line, a network of people who helped shot-down Allied Soldiers make the journey over the Pyrenees to safety in Spain.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

The book opens in 1995, with a dying elderly woman examining the contents of her trunk. An old passport photo of a young woman named Juliette Gervais causes memories from a distant past to rush back to her. Though we return to this woman several times throughout the story, her identity is not revealed until the end. We are transported back in time to 1939 and we meet a pair of sisters, Isabelle and Vianne, with two very different personalities and two very different reactions to the impending war. Eighteen-year-old Isabelle resents her father and sister for essentially abandoning her after their mother’s death. She is rebellious and stubborn and desperately wants to fight for France and join the resistance. Vianne wants to lay low and thinks everything will blow over. She remembers the effect World War I had on her father and she is not anxious for a repeat. She also has her daughter Sophie to protect.

1940, the Nazis invade France. Paris falls to the Germans on June 14. An armistice agreement is signed on June 22, leaving large parts of France to the Germans. Vianne remains in her quiet, countryside home with her daughter and her husband is sent off to war. Isabelle is one of the thousands who flee Paris and after a long, dangerous journey she finds safety with Vianne. Soon after, a Nazi soldier is billeted to Vianne’s home. Unable to sit still any longer or keep her opinions to herself, Isabelle secretly runs off to join the resistance. As the Nazis gradually creep into their lives, both sisters are confronted with moral dilemmas that have no easy answers. Even the best choice at the time can have terrible consequences. Food and money quickly run out and as the tough choices mount, Vianne finds bravery she didn’t know she had. I felt so conflicted and sympathetic for all the characters. [spoiler]Poor Vianne becomes somewhat of an outcast in her community because of her uneasy “friendship” with Captain Beck, a complicated man. I could totally understand her neighbors suspicions too. Everyone was just doing the best they could to survive.[/spoiler]

I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

Click Here To Buy buying cialis online Cenforce Online – Works up to 48 hours, this pill is prescribed for the men, not for women or normal behaving men. Tobacco smoke contains hundreds of deadly chemicals and most of them levitra cheap online can cause cancer. These are compounds which damage cell membranes, tamper with canadian viagra pharmacy DNA, and even cause death of cells. It is suggested to give a gap of buy cheap cialis at least 20-25 minutes. 7. I was also conflicted about my feelings for this book, which is why this review sat around as a draft for the past few months! Despite my five-star rating, I actually do agree with a majority of the criticisms: purple prose, melodramatic at times [spoiler](Dying in a lover’s arms upon his long-awaited arrival? Ugh! The writing during the first major death was over-the-top and didn’t ring true, detracting some from the emotional impact–but I was still sobbing.)[/spoiler], the barrage of all-things-WW2 happening to one family, and so on. And you know what? I didn’t even care! I fell in love with the characters, I was completely absorbed in the story, and I was completely transported to a different time and place. Admittedly, it is easier for me to gloss over the above issues in an audiobook but I really did love experience of listening to this story. I thought the voice narrator Polly Stone sounded robotic at first, but it just took me twenty minutes to ease into her style. She did a wonderful job and she really brought the characters to life.

I am hesitant to call The Nightingale light, because terrible, heart-wrenching things happen. Just a warning for expectations sake, since it was being compared negatively against All the Light We Cannot See; it is slightly closer to Nicholas Sparks than Anthony Doerr! I did think back to AtLWCS in the scenes where people were fleeing from Paris as German bombers fly overhead and the parts about the French resistance, but that is where the overlap ends.

List of events that completely destroyed me: [spoiler]Vianne/Rachel/the list, Sophie!, Ari left with Vianne, Isabelle and Vianne’s father’s sacrifice, the conclusion to Beck’s search, billeted soldier #2, Vianne’s husband difficult return, Daniel being picked up.[/spoiler]. The end is perfect!

What sacrifice would you make for your family or for future generations? What choices can you live with? I love books that let me get to know different people and make me understand their actions, whether they would be the actions I would take or not. It really made me look at myself and think about how I would react to certain situations. It is impossible to predict! I love Isabelle’s spirit, but I know I would be more of a Vianne. The Nightingale was one of those books that really surprised me and I am glad I got the chance to listen to it! I think the audiobook really enhanced the experience for me.

“Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.”

“If we could know the future our jobs would be a lot easier.”

A detailed and exhausting account of one nurse’s twelve-hour shift on a hospital’s hematology/oncology floor. Medical memoirs are a favorite genre of mine and I enjoyed it!

If I sound the alarm and the patient is OK, then I over-reacted and have untrustworthy clinical judgment. If I don’t call in the calvary when it’s needed, then I’m negligent and unsafe for patients. You don’t always know because what goes on inside human bodies can be hidden and subtle. This job would be easier if there weren’t such a narrow divide between being the canary in the coal mine and Chicken Little.

Over the twelve-hour shift, Brown is responsible for four patients. Four patients don’t sound like many at first, but the stakes are high and there are multiple tasks to juggle per patient. Her patients are immunocompromised, so a number of extra precautions have to be taken during each task to keep them safe from invisible dangers. We spend time with these four patients:
• Dorothy – A woman in her 50s with a positive attitude. She is being treated for leukemia and is waiting for her lab work to return to normal so she can be discharged after a six-week stay.
• Richard – A fragile lymphoma patient in his late 70s, who has just been prescribed an extremely toxic chemo drug that demands constant supervision while being administered.
• Sheila – A woman in her mid-40s with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, a blood clotting disorder. She is experiencing mysterious abdominal pain.
• Candace – A difficult (or empowered, depending on your perspective) cancer patient in her early-40s, who is scheduled to receive a transplant of her own cells.
In the book’s disclaimer the author notes that while these stories are true, specific details have been changed to protect patient and staff confidentiality. In some cases, composites are used. While she is unable to give us updates on patients after they leave the hospital, we do get enough of a conclusion for the aforementioned patients.

I watch the intern walk down the hall, slightly stopped, as if he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. But it is I who will give Mr. Hampton his Rituxan, who will monitor him for serious changes in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing, who will need to call this intern, or his replacement, if the treatment intended to heal ends up hurting instead. The intern doesn’t know this drug as well as I do. The intern won’t be the person hooking it up to Mr. Hampton’s IV, watching it run down the plastic tubing directly into his vein, knowing that if things go badly, it will be result of the work of my own hands.

Nerve damage is a risk in a prostatectomy, the removal of the prostate gland by surgery. best cheap viagra Maca can offer a cheapest viagra libidinous boost up and improve sexual aptitude by allowing you to perform wonderfully well during each intercourse. The result is hundreds of thousands now popping pills and rubbing on all manner of strange lotions over their bodies, while drinking bottled water and hoarding tinned food. cheap soft cialis deeprootsmag.org The deeprootsmag.org on line levitra measure of performance includes attendance, absences, missed sales quotas, and self-assessment evaluations. Brown walks us step-by-step through many procedures and consistently explains terms that the reader is probably not be familar with. If you aren’t already interested in the medical field, this book might feel tedious at times. There are repetitive procedures and tons of paperwork. By the end, I felt like I could administer Dilaudid! The repetition gives an accurate view of a shift and also added to the stress. In the middle of all these scheduled, routine tasks that involved many sub-tasks, there was a constant flow of unexpected issues. I got so anxious during the multiple interruptions that occurred while trying to discharge a patient. Brown had an ongoing to-do list running in her mind and the tasks had to constantly be reprioritized as more pressing events arose. For every item Brown marked off the to-do list, about ten items got added! A number of jobs required verifications from multiple people, which means the nurses have duties beyond their own patient load.

The more patients an individual nurse cares for, the smaller amount of TLC per patient. More significantly, research on staffing levels has made it pretty clear that the more patients a nurse has above a certain number (the number itself depends on the patient population and how sick the patients are), the larger the likelihood a patient will die who wouldn’t have otherwise. In other words, nurse-to-patient ratios aren’t just about patients feeling cared for; they’re also about fragile people staying alive.

Besides the patients, my favorite parts were Theresa Brown’s insights into problems with the way care is managed at hospitals. I wish there was more time spent on these topics. Theresa airs her frustrations with a system that doesn’t allow her to spend as much time with a patient as she would like. She always wanted to do more for them, but time constraints and the hospital’s bottom line didn’t allow it most of the time. She addresses the lack of emotional care for patients, hospital hierarchy, practitioner fatigue, the overcomplicating of processes in the name of safety and excessive workload. Though she gets frustrated, Brown loves her job and shows remarkable empathy for her patients and colleagues. In one chapter, she notices that she treats the escort in a way that she complained about a doctor treating her earlier. She realizes that everyone has a lot to do and maybe they are all doing the best they can to get through the day and keep their patients alive.

As force from the syringe makes blood swirl into the saline I stop and watch it billow like silk. Red. Beautiful. I never gave blood too much though before I took this job, but now I revere it. Blood is the liquid of life. Red cells give oxygen, platelets form clots, and white cells protect us from infection. Without healthy blood humans cannot live.

Because the author was an English major before changing careers, the language occasionally becomes poetic. This leads to some distracting figurative language and excessive literary references. (“Changing the bandages on his dying toes caused a shadow of pain to fall over his face, like the moon covering the sun during an eclipse.”) While it did make the work feel more human, it was jarring to shift from routine, “day-in-the-life” language to emotional language.

I had doubts that the author could maintain my interest with such a tight focus, but I enjoyed the whole book. We are all likely to be patients at some point, so this is a useful read for everyone. “There will come a time when each of us will need a clean, well lighted place that stays open all day and night, offering shelter from life’s storms.” It certainly will make me more patient! If you liked this book, you might also like The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician’s First Year.

In all the hurly-burly, I’d forgotten, but now I remember: The most important thing of all is that everyone’s alive at the end of the day.

2.5 Stars, 3 for the first half and 2 for the second half. Entertaining, but superficial exploration of public shaming in the age of social media. I was expecting fluffy, but this was fluffier than most of the popular social science books I’ve read. It is as much about the author and the process of writing this book, as it is about public shaming. One of my biggest book pet peeves is when an author keeps mentioning the book in the book (also see: [book:Yes Please|20910157]), so that heavily colors my perspective!

A life had been ruined. What was it for: just some social media drama? I think our natural disposition as humans is to plod along until we get old and stop. But with social media, we’ve created a stage for constant artificial high drama. Every day a new person emerges as a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. It’s all very sweeping, and not the way we actually are as people. What rush was overpowering us at times like this? What were we getting out of it?

I was interested in this book because internet shaming sessions always make me so uncomfortable! They are so counterproductive and self-serving. (“We express our opinion that Justine Sacco is a monster. We are instantly congratulated for this—for basically being Rosa Parks. We make the on-the-spot decision to carry on believing it.“) Many times a person’s words are interpreted in the least charitable way so that they can become the latest poster child for everything wrong with the world. Death threats and a persistent pile-on that continues until someone is professionally destroyed seem excessive for many of these conceptual crimes.

We became keenly watchful for transgressions. After a while, it wasn’t just transgressions we were keenly watchful for. It was misspeakings. Fury at the terribleness of other people had started to consume us a lot. And the rage that swirled around seemed increasingly in disproportion to whatever stupid thing some celebrity had said. It felt different to satire or journalism or criticism. It felt like punishment. In fact, it felt weird and empty when there wasn’t anyone to be furious about. The days between shamings felt like days picking at fingernails, treading water.

I was surprised at how many of the cases in the book I recognized. That probably means I should spend less time on the Internet! A few of the cases discussed in this book: (The Sacco and Stone links are articles by Jon Ronson)
• Jonah Lehrer – Pop-science author who got caught plagiarizing and fabricating quotes. He gave a self-serving public apology that didn’t go so well.
• Justine Sacco – Tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” before flying off to South Africa. By the time she landed, she had became infamous and was fired from her PR job.
• Lindsay Stone – The woman photographed flipping the bird and pretending to shout obscenities next to a “Silence and Respect” sign at Arlington National Cemetery. She lost her job as a caretaker for people with learning disabilities.
• Donglegate – Woman (Adria Richards) at professional conference overhears two men joking about “dongles” and tweets their photo to the world. One of the men (Hank) is fired. Woman receives backlash for the public shaming and is the target of violent threats. She is fired from her job after hackers take her employer’s servers hostage.

Since Lehrer is an author, it doesn’t surprise me that his transgressions destroyed him professionally. Stone’s and Sacco’s attempts at humor were disrespectful and offensive, but it probably should have been a learning experience rather than permanent professional destruction. As the situation is presented, I felt the worst for the Donglegate guys because it was a private conversation. Later, I felt awful for the woman who exposed them because she became the target of ongoing, over-the-top vitriol.

There is also a really interesting interview with Texas Congressman Ted Poe, who was known for using public shaming as a punishment when he was a judge. My biases were similar to Ronson’s when I started reading the interview, but by the time I finished reading it I developed a more nuanced perspective. It really gave me something to think about.

“The justice system in the West has a lot of problems,” Poe said, “but at least there are rules. You have basic rights as the accused. You have your day in court. You don’t have any rights when you’re accused on the Internet. And the consequences are worse. It’s worldwide forever.”

The first half the book was really engaging, but halfway through the chapters started drifting away from the central topic. It lost all organization and I began to lose sight of the author’s overall point. We follow along as the author goes to a shame eradication workshop, the filming of a shame porn, and a prison to discuss shame and criminality. I should have been more interested in these parts because these are the sections that aren’t plastered all over the Internet. I was more affected by the stories of the people on both sides of public shaming than I was in the author’s antics. The most interesting chapter in the second half is about reputation management firms, companies that manipulate Google search results. Their goal is to shift the offensive material to the second or third page of the search results because very few people look past the first few links.

“It feels like they want an apology, but it’s a lie.” Mike Daisey and I were sitting in a Brooklyn restaurant. He was a big man and he frequently dabbed the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief that was always within his reach. “It’s a lie because they don’t want an apology,” he said. “An apology is supposed to be a communion—a coming together. For someone to make an apology, someone has to be listening. They listen and you speak and there’s an exchange. That’s why we have a thing about accepting apologies. There’s a power exchange that happens. But they don’t want an apology.” He looked at me. “What they want is my destruction. What they want is for me to die. They will never say this because it’s too histrionic. But they never want to hear from me again for the rest of my life, and while they’re never hearing from me, they have the right to use me as a cultural reference point whenever it services their ends. That’s how it would work out best for them. They would like me to never speak again.” He paused. “I’d never had the opportunity to be the object of hate before. The hard part isn’t the hate. It’s the object.”

The interviews reminded me of the type in entertainment magazines, where the interviewers meet with celebrities at restaurants and every minor action is written as if it is deep insight into the mind. Ronson raises interesting questions and leaves them dangling in the air, with no attempted resolution. In the chapter about a list of prostitution customers that was publicly exposed, it was noted that the men on the list escaped public shaming. However, those same men actually mocked the only woman on the list. It is brought up in a “Hmm, that’s interesting! I wonder why?” type way and then that line of thought was promptly dropped. I would love to read more about how sex/race/etc. affects the intensity of shaming. I also wanted more from Adria Richard’s interview. Every time it would get interesting, he would move on to the next segment. Though in Ronson’s defense, she had a rigid belief system and didn’t see people beyond identity politics. There wasn’t much room for self-analysis.

Here are nine of the most important nutrients needed for a healthy sexual activity between a man and the man does not leave out quickly after the capsule consumption. http://appalachianmagazine.com/2017/03/02/first-national-bank-of-williamson-agrees-to-forfeit-1-36-million/ viagra prices All these charges are not generico levitra on line applicable to that medicine. It is a generic levitra online usual problem amongst men who cross the age of 30. In Urinary problems: Black Musli prescription free levitra acts as diuretic and Anti-inflammatory Pill, you are free from side efforts. Ronson conducted a brief interview with some hackers affiliated with 4Chan, but I would have like to read about more about the people doing the shaming. I was really curious how the people who participate in Internet mob justice deal with offensive things in real life. Is the visceral and viscous behavior on the internet a way to act out frustrations that can’t be aired on family and coworkers? How do they view the prison system when it comes to harsh punishments vs. rehabilitation?

My key takeaways from this book:
• While there may be some power element to public shamings, people usually think they are doing something good by participating.
• It is easy to forget that your social media profiles are not part of a closed network. Just like reality TV participants forget the cameras are watching their every move, it is easy for regular people to forget that the eyes of the world are upon them when they are primarily interacting with a select network. Even with perfect privacy settings, an offended follower can easily share private material.
• Schadenfreude – We all have the propensity to enjoy shaming people.
• People are more than their worst mistake.
• Google is forever! There is a the mistaken notion that the targets of shaming continue their life without major repercussions after public attention wanes. The increasing use of Google searches by employers makes that extremely unlikely.
• If you ever become the target of public shaming, don’t engage…or be a man in a consensual sex scandal.

We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.

I probably would have gotten as much insight from seeking out articles about public shaming, but this was a quick read. It gave me a nice break from a book I was really struggling with. It reads like a magazine article, so it is perfect if you need something to read in an area with lots of distraction. This book would be most useful for people who have been publicly shamed or those who enjoy participating in public shaming. If you are interested in topics addressed in the book, you might enjoy [book:Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice|23364926]. It is about the US justice system, but it covers the psychology behind a people’s actions when it comes to judgment and punishment.

We were creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland.

Some updates on the cases mentioned above:
• Jonah Lehrer – Has a new book coming out in July, [book:A Book About Love|27274438]. I am sure it will be thoroughly combed through!
• Justine Sacco – An article from the Gawker writer who publicized Sacco’s tweet to a wider audience: Justine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came To Peace With Her.
• Lindsay Stone– Reputation management seemed to work for her by the end of the book. Ronson’s book brought it to the forefront again, so her transgression is the top result on Google again.
• Donglegate – PyCon updated their harassment procedure, requesting that people “do not disclose public information about the incident until staff have had sufficient time in which to address the situation.” Hank had an easier time recovering from Donglegate than Adria and he found another job quickly. She is now an independent technology consultant.

Strange and magical coming-of-age story constructed like a fairy tale. I don’t think these characters will stick with me, but I loved the atmosphere and I am so excited to read anything this author publishes.

Every story needs a hero.
Every story needs a villain.
Every story needs a secret.
…
What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying.

“All the strangest stories are true.” Wink Poppy Midnight moves at a brisk pace and it can easily be read in one sitting. I selected this book because of the stunning cover that sets the mood perfectly and the comparison to [book:We Were Liars|16143347]. The two books are more similar in atmosphere than they are in storyline. There is an unsettling darkness lurking beneath the story. It has a timeless quality. It feels like a fairy tale and it makes constant reference to them throughout the story. Almost every character has a unique name (Wink, Poppy, Midnight, Bee, Hops, Leaf, etc.), which adds to the magic. It seems like there is something supernatural going on the entire time, but part of the fun was that I never could be certain of it!

We were like the three Fates, weaving the story together, threads of gold, red, and midnight blue. There would be wolves and tricks and lies and cunning and vengeance in our story. I would make sure of it.

The setting is dreamlike and magical. There are farmhouses, woods, a dangerous river, potentially haunted houses, and an albino stag. The perspective alternates rapidly between Wink, Poppy, and Midnight. Perspective changes are clearly marked by name. Wink is an eccentric, mysterious girl who loves fairy tales and wants her life to be like one. Her dad wandered off, her mom is a fortune teller and she has six siblings. Poppy is a cruel, manipulative queen bee, who lives to be the center of attention. “I never cried, not even as a baby. My parents said it was because I was such a sweet little angel, but my parents are fools. I never cried because there are only two reasons people cry, one is empathy and the other is self-pity, and I never had any of either.” She is really mean, but I love how unapologetic she is. (She reminded me a little of Amma in Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects.)

Midnight is a boy with a big heart who is caught in between the two girls. After his mother, a writer, runs off to France with his brother, Midnight and his father move into a creaky old house across from Wink’s farmhouse. He hopes the distance from Poppy will loosen her grip on him. Poppy has no intention of letting him go and she is enraged when Midnight’s attention shifts to Wink. Wink is determined to make Midnight play the part of the Hero in a fairy tale of her own making. Poppy is the obvious Villain and it is the Hero’s job to defeat the Villain. But the tagline says “Someone is lying,” so nothing is as it seems.
Using L-Arginine topically, as in a lotion, ensures it is targeting the capillaries and generico cialis on line blood vessels in the penis strong. If we talk about males who are having psychological issues, addiction to alcohol or any generic prescription viagra nervous disorders have greater chances to suffer from this type of disorder. Male impotence if viagra without observed at younger ages would miserably impact on the relationship status of the couple. Man quickly associate big penis with great performance thus greater leading power, making them check for more cialis online sales more powerful than his peers.

“There’s a monster in the shape of a beautiful woman. She kills people. Children, old people, everyone. She tries to kill the girl that Thief loves. He fights the monster, and he kills her, because he’s the hero. There is a great victory. And a descent into darkness. There are clues and riddles to solve, and trials of strength and wit. There’s redemption, and consequences, and ever after.”

Wink, Poppy, and Midnight are all trying to find their place in the world. This story demonstrates that people can’t be reduced to an archetype and that life is enough as it is. There is so much beauty in the smallness of life. Wink Poppy Midnighta great read for a chilly evening when you are looking for a little magic and whimsy in your life. (The quotes below are theme related. I don’t consider them spoilers, but I tagged them because they appear near the end. Tread carefully!)

[spoiler]

“Wink wasn’t a villain. She wasn’t a hero. People aren’t just one thing. They never, ever are. Wink was flesh and blood. She was bad. And she was good. She was real.”

[/spoiler]

[spoiler]

“I used to think that I needed to be part of a story, a big story, one with trials and villains and temptations and rewards. That’s how I would conquer it, conquer death.” She sighed again, and nestled closer into me. “All that matters, in the end, is the little things. The way Mim says my name to wake me up in the morning. The way Bee’s hand feels in mine. The way the sun cast my shadow across the yard yesterday. The way your cheeks flush when we kiss. The smell of hay and the taste of strawberries and the feel of fresh black dirt between my toes. This is what matters, Midnight.”

[/spoiler]

This book debuts on March 22, 2016.

Holy crap! This one hit me right in the gut. I have never had more anxiety while reading than during the rising action and climax of this book. Heart-pounding, have-to-look-away-from-the-page-because-it-is just-too-much-to-handle-type anxiety. I went into this book only knowing the general circumstances of why Ma and Jack were in Room. I would recommend knowing as little as possible, so a large part of this review is under spoiler tags.

“‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality.’”

Jack just turned five and he has a great life. He spends every day with his Ma and they have so much fun together. But Ma isn’t always as happy as Jack. Sometimes she gets sad and has to spend the whole day in bed. Ma says they can’t live like this much longer and they need to leave their 11’x11′ room. Jack protests, but Ma insists there is a huge, wonderful world right outside their door.

Room has been on my to-read list since it came out, but I never got around to reading it. It was getting harder to avoid spoilers because of the movie release and award show season, so I figured now was as good a time as any! I’m probably one of the last people on earth to read this book, but I think it came into my life at the right time. I don’t know if I would have had the same visceral reaction in 2008.

Before I didn’t even know to be mad that we can’t open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it. When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I’m five I know everything.

• Reading the narration of a five-year-old boy is the biggest hurdle to overcome with this book: inconsistent speech patterns, stream-of-consciousness, and anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. I heard the voice of the actor who plays Jack in the movie, so I read the book in his voice. I think doing that made it a more natural reading experience for me.
• You really have to read between the lines of Jack’s narration. Jack’s voice shields us from some of the most brutal aspects of Room. Jack is an innocent and doesn’t see anything strange about his life or some of the weird games they play (Keypad!). His Ma has done an amazing job protecting him, despite their difficult situation.
• Room is beautiful testament to motherhood. Not only has Ma created an environment that makes Jack feel safe, but she is so creative in keeping a routine and educating him. When Jack describes his day, you witness the education she is sneaking in through everyday activities. They waste as little as possible and she is so resourceful in making toys with Jack.

Side effects The side commander viagra effects of this drug is only 100mg per day. In some cases, the primary doctor might try to keep the children away from negative influences and triggers. pfizer viagra for sale It’s kind of the same argument that came up during Eliteweb.cc’s beta-testing brand viagra phases, as we had a client in the Canadian Government whose recipients were mostly using highly secure email programs. Among the sildenafil professional various drug patterns that have been invented by the research of the medical science.

Giants can be just as bad, be he alive or be he dead I’ll grind his bones to make my bread, but Jack ran away with the golden hen and he was slithering down the Beanstalk quick quick. The Giant was climbing down after him but Jack shouted to his Ma for the ax, that’s like our knives but bigger, and his Ma was too scared to chop the Beanstalk on her own but when Jack got to the ground they did it together and the Giant went smash with all his insides coming out, ha ha. Then Jack was Jack the Giant Killer.

• I loved how Donoghue incorporated stories we all share: Jack in the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland, The Count of Monte Cristo, the Bible, etc. Ma’s story is extreme and specific, but the use of these stories help the reader relate Ma’s personal struggles to universal themes. “Stories are a different kind of true.”
• I was really surprised that the major shift in the book occurred at the halfway point! It is mostly a character book overall, but the first half has a plot-driven thriller-like aspect. The second half is completely character-driven.

The rest of my points are huge spoilers and the tags aren’t working in this review, so I will have to direct you to my Goodreads review for the rest: Full Review for Room on Goodreads

Room is an emotional, uniquely-told story about growing up and the bond between a mother and child. It deeply affected me and I refuse to believe Ma and Jack aren’t real. 😉

_____________________________

I couldn’t stop thinking about this book after I read it, so we ended up seeing the movie at the theater the weekend after I read it. It was so good! The letter the director Lenny Abrahamson wrote to the author as his request to direct the movie gives you some insight into how seriously he took this adaptation! Emma Donoghue wrote the screenplay and she knew just what to combine, trim and substitute to keep the major themes of the book intact. (There is nothing I hate more than a book adaptation that hits all the plot points, but loses the point.) The movie is a wonderful complement to the book. If you weren’t a huge fan of the book, depending on the reasons, you might enjoy the movie more. Also: If you are bringing someone with you that isn’t familiar with the story, don’t let them watch the trailer! It shows the whole story. I was worried when I brought my husband, because I was going to be a little irrationally hurt if he didn’t like it! Thankfully, he loved it!

A brutal, beautifully written family epic that is set during the political turmoil in post-WWII Taiwan. The story of the Tsai family spans six decades and is seamlessly woven around actual events. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys realistic historical fiction and enjoys deeply touching stories about family.

Something had happened here once, but other things had too, and life went on. We have to remind ourselves to remember

The youngest daughter of the Tsai family is born in Taipei on the night that the 228 Massacre* begins. After the initial civilian uprising, the governor-general calls a meeting under the guise of reaching out and establishing peace. Baba, her father, goes to the meeting in good faith and politely expresses his desire for a democratic Taiwan. A few days later Baba is taken from his home, not to heard from again for a decade. When Baba returns home, he is a changed man and unrecognizable to his family. The youngest daughter, our unnamed narrator who was a newborn when he was taken, has a hard time relating to her father, but he takes a special interest in her. She is angry with him when he makes a decision she considers dishonorable, but decades later she too has to choose between what is right and her family’s survival.

Thousands of husbands disappeared in those weeks. Sons as young as twelve. Brothers. Friends. What better way to remake society, my mother thought, than to eliminate the teachers and principals, the students, the lawyers and doctors—truly, anybody who had an opinion and a voice? Beyond the river, execution grounds, field after field irrigated with blood, waited to be discovered. Buildings would crush the bones.

This ARC was gifted rather than requested. I have to admit that I wasn’t terribly excited about it. The cover and title didn’t stand out for me and I have a negative knee-jerk reaction when I see the words love, betrayal and historical fiction in the same paragraph! That was unfair of me because this book was wonderful and I am so grateful that I got the chance to read it. It had me hooked within the first few chapters.

Shawna Yang Ryan’s writing is beautiful and poetic. The book felt so deeply personal, that I was surprised when I read the author’s bio and it wasn’t at least partially a memoir! The setting is richly drawn. I felt like I was actually in Taiwan and could almost feel the steamy humidity coming off the pages. The author is able to explain the historical context without interrupting the story by sounding like a textbook. It isn’t necessary to have prior knowledge of Taiwan’s history, but I included a short timeline at the end of this review. A general chronology helps me better understand the complexities when I read historical fiction about new-to-me subjects.

“The loss of freedom isn’t a restriction of movement; it’s the unending feeling of being watched.”

Green Island sounds like a pleasant place, but it is where political prisoners were kept during the decades of martial law in Taiwan. There are some violent scenes involving torture. While the story is mostly told from the perspective of the youngest daughter, Ryan occasionally slips into the consciousness of other family members, including the father while he is imprisoned. Green Island isn’t always the easiest book to read because of the brutality the characters experience, but I couldn’t put it down because of how deeply she made me care for the Tsai family. After the narrator moved to the United States, I longed for Taiwan. I missed the interactions she had with her parents and siblings. The author nailed the complicated relationships between family members. The four Tsai children are so different and each play a different role in the family. We don’t spend much time with the oldest brother Dua Hyan, but he becomes one of the most interesting characters. His choices are the most self-serving, but like everyone else he feels his choices are made for the right reasons.

I realized that this was what Mama had meant by love. A shared experience, a shared history, a shared trauma: this is what made us a family. No one else could understand it…I thought of all the moments growing up when I had disliked my family—my resentment of my father, my disgust at my mother, my anger at my siblings. Of all the families in the world, why was I born into this family? I’d thought. As if just dumb fate had brought us together. Now I understood there was something stronger than fate. Choice. It was ugly and quotidian and lacked romance, and that was exactly what gave it its strength.

I loved Baba and the bond he has with his youngest daughter. Baba was a sensible, justice-minded man before he was taken. When he returns, he is hardened and paranoid. The narrator is the only member of the family who has no memory of him and can’t compare him to the person he used to be. As a child, she is unable to make sense of her father, but decades later the political unrest of her home country follow her to the USA and she is asked to make sacrifices for her own family’s survival. She begins to see reflections of his life in her own journey. “There was absolutely no honor in survival.” The book repeatedly asks: “what would you sacrifice for the ones you love?” Some characters will do anything to keep their families together, while others sacrifice anything for their homeland and a better life for future generations.

Wei had told me a gentler era was encroaching upon Taiwan. Brutality belonged to the previous decade. Does brutality ever get old? I wondered. Each generation brings a new group of men who have not yet learned the guilt of the last. They need to feel bones breaking under their very own fingers to know for sure how they feel about it.

The narrator’s life mirrors her parents life in big and small ways, illustrating the endless, repetitive march of history, both in a societal sense and within a family. One small moment I remember is the Tsai women pondering a lifetime with their husbands: “That he remained, in some way, unknown made the thought of a lifetime together bearable.” (the mother Li Min in 1947) and “Maybe what made the years bearable was to let all those bad feelings slip beneath the surface unacknowledged.” (the narrator several decades later). The ending is perfect and it echoes back to prior points of the book, both the narrator’s birth in the beginning and her discovery of how little she knows about the events surrounding her birth. As the narrator grows and fills in the gaps of her knowledge, she learns that life isn’t simple and neither are the choices that people make. Life moves on and complex lives are simplified for the history books and museums, but the past is never “dead, gone, irrelevant.”

I gave my respects to the widow, beaten the night that my motherhood gone into labor with me–neither woman aware of the other or how their fates were tied, however tenuously. Maybe this is what it meant to be a citizen of a place—bonded to each other by the histories thrust upon us.

Regular reasons for low charisma and poor erectile capacity incorporate poor blood flow to and into the penis which cialis uk helps you show signs of improvement erection and hold it for more. Kamagra medicine is to be taken orally which is very simple and reliable. free viagra pills However while conducting trials viagra doctor it was observed that the drug has its great impact over sensuality of the person. This may be an indication of a genuine Canada pharmacy. order levitra The setting and the characters are what makes Green Island special. It was terrifying how trouble followed the narrator over the Pacific Ocean. (See: The assassination of Taiwanese writer Henry Liu). This is a book you can read again and again over a lifetime and get something different from it each time. I learned so much from this book, and it has caused me to seek out further information on Taiwan’s history and the surrounding conflicts briefly mentioned in the text. I’ve read enough about war to see that while the objective facts of these conflicts are different, the impact on people is universally similar. All the books I am about to list are all very different, but they share similar themes: All the Light We Cannot See (especially the last chapter), The Buried Giant, The Constellation of Vital Phenomena|, And After Many Days, and The Nightingale.

The world does not happen the way we lay it out on paper: one event after another, one word following the next like a trail of ants. The rocks in the field do not preclude the flowing river fifty miles away; a man sneezes and at the exact same time a woman washes her feet, a child trips and blood oozes from the broken skin, a dog nips at a flea on its hindquarter, and a bird swallows a beetle. Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose.

__________________________________________
* What better way to follow that last quote than with a timeline! 😉 The BBC has a better version, but for my purposes here is the simplistic timeline of a complex situation:
1927-1949/1950 – Period of Chinese Civil War in the Republic of China (ROC) between the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC).
1945 – Japan forced to return control of Taiwan to ROC as part of post-World War II settlement.
1947 – The 228 Massacre: Discontent with KMT rule in Taiwan boils over after police violently handle a contraband cigarette vendor and kill an innocent bystander. The citizens riot and and the government declares martial law. Over 10,000 people are killed and even more disappear without a trace.
1949 – KMT government and refugees flee to Taiwan after losing the civil war. The war resulted in two de facto states, the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland. The White Terror period in Taiwan begins with KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek’s reign and continues for almost forty years. Over 140,000 Taiwanese “political dissidents” are imprisoned and thousands are executed.
1971 – UN recognizes PRC as the sole government of China, which a huge blow to the ROC.
1979 – The United States formally recognizes the PRC and severs relations with Taiwan.
1987 – Martial law ends (see 1949). This was the longest period of martial law recorded at the time it was abolished.
1996 – First democratic presidential election in Taiwan.
2000 – 50 Years of KMT rule ends with the election of a Democratic Progressive Party candidate for president.
Present – Taiwan’s political status still controversial. PRC claims Taiwan and ROC still claims mainland China. The numbers of those affected listed above are also in contention.

Rousing, fast-paced adventure full of magic.

“Aren’t you afraid of dying?” he asked Lila now. She looked at him as if it were a strange question. And then she shook her head. “Death comes for everyone,” she said simply. “I’m not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here.” She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. “I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”

Kell is an Antari, one of the few people left who can travel to parallel dimensions. There are 4 Londons in Kell’s world:
• Grey London – Ruled by King George. Magic is not really a thing here.
• Red London – Kell’s home, which is ruled by the Maresh Dynasty. Magic is respected and practiced with balance.
• White London – Ruled by whoever managed to murder their way to the throne this time, currently the cruel Dane Twins, Astrid and Athos. Magic is a limited resource and this London has been savaged by the craving for it. It is a dangerous place to visit.
• Black London – Devoured by magic. It has been closed off and people do not speak of it.
(Or as Delilah Bard would summarize it: “There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.”)

When Kell isn’t delivering letters between the royalty of the different worlds, he illegally smuggles artifacts between the Londons. This bad habit gets him into more trouble than he bargained for when he ends up in possession of a relic that could cause terrible consequences for all of the worlds. While on the run, he crosses paths with a cross-dressing thief named Delilah Bard who robs him and then ends up saving his life. Lila insists that she joins him on his travels so she can have a proper adventure. What follows is a dangerous journey, as Kell and Lila try to keep the stone from getting into the wrong hands.

“You know so little of war. Battles may be fought from the outside in, but wars are won from the inside out.”

This response is mediated by the release of nitric oxide viagra sample (NO) in body. For example Kamagra viagra purchase no prescription try this link tablets are available in three different forms of consumption- tablets, jellies, and soft tablets. Extreme erectile dysfunction is impotence and order viagra is basically manufactured with profound insight on that problem. If you are a young tadalafil 100mg Click Here adult or the parent of a young adult who is going to begin driving soon, make your plans for the completion of the drivers ed requirement today. I received this audiobook via the now defunct Ford Audiobook Club. A Darker Shade of Magic is one of V.E. Schwab’s adult novels, but it will appeal to young adult readers as well. I was surprised when I saw the book was 400 pages, because it doesn’t seem like there are 400 pages of action when I describe it to others. It doesn’t get caught up in subplots and it can be easily summarized. It is so fast-paced! There was a cinematic feel to the whole book. I love how a sense of magic and chilliness permeated throughout the whole story! The setting was really different from what I usually read, so I am glad the author spent a large portion of the book developing the four worlds and explaining how the magic works. I was a little overwhelmed and confused with all the new information at first, especially since I was listening to an audiobook. I am glad I stuck with it, because it was such a fun book!

“I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.” – [spoiler]Rhy[/spoiler]
“I apologize for shooting you in the leg. I was myself entirely.” – Lila

Kell is a complicated and grumpy character. He has an almost nostalgic fascination with the dull, magicless Grey London. I loved Delilah in contrast with Kell. She is impulsive and sarcastic. Her greatest dream is to be a pirate and have her own ship. How could you not love her? Sometimes I start to feel a sense of dread when the two main characters are opposite genders; like here we go, a forced romance, blech. Fortunately, A Darker Shade of Magic avoids taking that path. There are some few-and-far-between friendly flirtations, but they just add to the fun of the book. It 99.9% ADVENTURE! I have absolutely no clue what direction Schwab is going to go with Kell and Delilah and I love it!

“Bad magic, Kell had called it.
No, thought Lila now. Clever magic.
And clever was more dangerous than bad any day of the week.”

The voice narration is done by Stephen Crossley and he is brilliant. The story is told in third person and I felt like I was sitting in front of a warm cobblestone fireplace riveted while an old man was telling me a legend as it gently snowed outside. (Oddly specific, I know! 🙂 ) The only downside to his narration was I kept picturing Kell as much older than 21, though that could be in part because of his maturity level next to 19-year-old Lila! I would not recommend listening to this book over several months like I did. (November and December are terrible months for me to start audiobooks!) The world is so complex, especially for readers who don’t typically read books with worlds much different from our own. It is helpful to have everything fresh on your mind when you return to it.

The ending gives some closure, but there are enough questions to get me excited about the next one. [book:A Gathering of Shadows|20764879] (Shades of Magic #2) is coming out February 23, 2016 (TOMORROW!). I hope we get to find out Lila’s background and get to visit some of the places we didn’t make it to in the first one!