Mini Reviews | Books About Books

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Agatha Christie is the greatest crime fiction writer in history. I love her clever use of poison in so many of her novels. It adds another level of mystery; there are so many ways and kinds, the possibilities seemingly endless. Christie carefully selected each poison, practically making it a character itself.

I absolutely loved this book. Harkup has written several books like this, looking at the science behind some of our most beloved characters or authors. There's one on Dracula, Frankenstein, and Shakespeare. That one is my most favorite and you can find the review HERE.

Harkup looks at a variety of poison, over a dozen altogether. Each chapter follows the same template, but given how many different types she discusses, it did not feel repetitive or like it was dragging.

First, the author gives a summary of the book she is using to showcase Christie's skill with the specific poison. Then she begins discussing the poison itself. She gives a history of how it developed, the chemical make-up and science of how it works within the body, symptoms of poisoning, how it's detected, and if there are antidotes.

I definitely would recommend this for Christie fans, and also crime fiction fans in general. Such a fun read!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Full disclosure, Frankenstein is not my favorite. I read it once, years ago. But because I really enjoy this author's work, I gave this one a try and was pleasantly surprised.

While the likelihood of Shelley's methods working in 1818 were non-existent, Harkup looks at the science of the time and the scientists working to make all kinds of discoveries and break-throughs in various fields. Luckily, we are still quite a ways off from being able to do so in our time, as well. Even so, the author explores all the yucky goodness you would expect from a book about a monster put together by dead body parts - the stories of body snatchers, tests to determine rate of decay, etc.

In addition to exploring the scientific advancements at the time, Harkup also writes a significant biography of Shelley as well. I do not know much about her but the basics, and had no idea she was so young when she wrote the book, nor the circumstances surrounding it. I knew a bit more about her mother, but enjoyed learning about her as much as the science of the most famous monster in history.

The author also provides quite a biography of the novel as well. She recounts the writing challenge proposed at Villa Diodati, to write stories to scare one another on that dark and stormy night, then how the book fared when it was first published in 1818, and again when it was revised and reissued in 1831.

Despite no more than a passing interest in Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, this was a fantastic read and I really enjoyed it. I think this is a must-read for fans, and those with an interest in the science of the time period.

Mini Reviews | Hodge Podge

I feel a potential reviewing slump coming on so obviously the only way to stop it is to write lots of reviews about completely unrelated books. Here's hoping it works!

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I really enjoyed this book - but I am such a sucker for books about cities, city biographies so to speak. I love learning about how massive cities we now take for granted started out sometimes at tiny villages with futures no could have predicted.

The author does a fantastic job pulling together many threads - history, anthropology, archaeology, and our own modern observations. She is an archaeologists, so that level of expertise is welcome as she not only discusses the rise and fall of some major urban centers, but the process of discovering them.

We visit several fantastic locations around the world - Tenochtitlan, Pompeii, Tell Brak, and the like. In these city remains, and others as well, the author explains how over many thousands of years the city as we know it today emerged. As we journey through the ancient world, even through some of the author's own digs in India, we see that the world as we know it today has more in common with these cities of the past than we think. She makes a lot of comparisons between cities now vs then, and delves into the idea of cities impact the people who live there. I found this part particularly interesting; our environment impacts us as much as we impact it.

I also found her take on the future of cities to be of interest. The likelihood of all major cities simply collapsing over time is not necessarily a given. It's true that many cities in the ancient world came to an end at some point and were abandoned, otherwise archeological digs at these locations would not happen. However, for cities to simply end is not all that common. The citizens move elsewhere, taking the influence of their former cities with them when they move on to other cities, and the cycle continues.

Recommended.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have a fairly good working knowledge of the Kennedys as a whole, but the bulk of my deeper knowledge revolves around Jack, Jackie, and JFK, Jr. I know some about Bobby, but only as he functioned in relation to JFK in the White House years, and then later in regards to his assassination. I was sixteen when JFK Jr. died and was absolutely gutted. Even at that age I remembering wondering how much more one family could take, and that Caroline was now all alone.

Side note: If you are one of those crazies who thinks JFK Jr. secretly survived the plane crash that killed his wife and sister-in-law, and that he would ever in a million years support the former guy and run as his VP, you can kindly fuck all the way off into the sun. A) That would never happen, given the fact that he was a Democrat who many thought could win the party nomination and presidency someday and B) Shame on your for piling more hurt onto Caroline every time you spout this nonsense.

When I came across this book I was delighted, as I am trying to learn more about all of the Kennedys. I am not sure why, and there are many detractors who deride the obsession our nation has with the family, but so many of us still can not look away. Even as the generation after Caroline and JFK Jr. have not managed to capture our attention the way their predecessors did, there are still many who read books such as this, about the eight children of Joe and Rose.

Kathleen, called Kick by her family, was Joe's favorite child and Jack's favorite sister. It is easy to see why. She was adventurous, charming, clever, hilarious. She made her debut into London society in 1938 when Joe was appointed the US Ambassador. London fell in love with Kick as well, as did a specific young man named Billy - William Cavendish, heir to the Dukedom of Devonshire and Chatsworth. They married despite protests of her family over the religious divide, and Joe Jr was the only Kennedy to attend the civil ceremony. Unfortunately a long life together was not in the cards, as Cavendish was killed in action while fighting in Belgium just a few months later. Kick would not live much longer than her husband, dying in a plan crash four years later, at age 28.

Kick was in many ways ahead of her time. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and saw whomever she wanted - despite threats from her family that she would be cut-off on various occasions. Kick lived her life to the fullest, never minding a bit of scandal that came along with whatever she was up to.

Kick would become the second Kennedy child to die, but certainly not the last. Joe Jr was killed four years earlier in the war, around a month before Cavendish. Her beloved and favorite brother Jack would become the third in 1963, and from out of these family tragedies the so-called Kennedy Curse would emerge.

The author makes good use of sources, relying both on family stories and words by Kick's own in hand in the form of letters she wrote.

I would recommend this one to those with an interest in the Kennedy family dynamics and these 'forgotten' children who have been eclipsed by Jack, Bobby, and Ted.

Mini Reviews | The Donner Party

I don't think I will ever get this story out of my head for as long as I live. I can't even imagine, no matter what books I read on the subject, what it was like. Truly horrifying.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sarah Graves is twenty one at the time that she and her family embark on what will prove to be a harrowing journey of unimaginable horror. She and her family, including her new husband, head west in search of a better life. Yet in a short seven months they find themselves trapped with other emigrants led by George Donner in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sarah joins a dozen other members of the party who attempt to make it out by snowshoe to get help for those they are leaving behind. Who knows what they will find when and if they even return.

Yet even before that heavy storm came in and barred their passage out, the journey was difficult. Covering many miles a day in a bumpy wagon over unforgiving terrain, there were accidents and people died. Animals were injured and sometimes whole wagons full of belongings had to be abandoned if they could not be repaired.

When the snow finally came, the oxen were so malnourished that they could not continue. This effectively trapped the members of the party who could not all make it out on foot. They killed some of the animals to have some food, but with the animals being underfed die to the conditions, it is easy to see why that plan didn't work out so well.

Sarah and those who attempted to seek help on foot had plenty of tragedy and horror of their own after leaving their makeshift camp. Even they could not escape the starvation, hypothermia, and death despite their best efforts.

I learned so much more about the Donner Party - for instance it was a massive group of extended families travelling together, and not only the Donners - obviously, since the author has chosen to focuses specifically on Sarah Graves and her family as part of the larger group. The group also consisted of several single men who had been hired to help the group on their way. Often the story is told that these were foolhardy people who had no idea what they were doing or what they were up against. Yet the Graves family had experience in travelling in this manner before. They were pioneers who knew what a difficult journey this would be, and unfortunately their party crossed paths with those who were ruled by greed, sending the massive party on a 'short cut' that was no such thing.

I never knew this before, but this route had never been travelled, ever. EVER. In my vague recollection of learning about the party, I always thought they simply left far too late in the year and were caught in a terrible snowstorm. While it is true they did leave Missouri about three weeks after the cut-off, that was not the only cause of their demise.

I appreciate the author's efforts to present a full and complete picture of the entire group, documenting to the best of his ability the route they took - though of course his transportation was a lot more comfortable, and there was a much less likely chance of him getting caught in a blinding storm and starving or freezing to death. He does not spare us any details in fact, about anything. The author is thorough in his research and reports on every aspect of the journey. The attention to detail is important and you can't help but feel you are right there with them, in the worst of it, wondering how anyone could possible come out of this alive.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

I read both of these books fairly close together and feel that both did an excellent job in recounting the devastation of this journey that only half the emigrants would survive.

The author uses numerous sources to tell the story of the party, not focusing on one particular woman or family, as the previous book did. This way works just as well, and I feel like reading both books would be helpful for anyone wanting to know more. He uses scientific data such a survival rates and snowfall totals, as well as journals and letters written by those who belonged to the Donner Party. Descendants of the doomed travelers made these documents available and one can not read through the writings without feeling such deep sadness for those who were once so full of hope at the prospect of starting a new life out West, to provide for their families.

One of the things the author does well is presenting the party as human beings forced to make extraordinarily difficult decisions when the time came to do so. There are not heroes and villains here, or at least the area is much more grey than black and white. I also appreciate that he does not dwell on the gruesome aspects of the story, when finally those who stayed behind at Donner Lake were driven to such madness by hunger, that they would take to eating the dead. It also must be remembered that most did not actually do so.

One thing the author does well is look at the contradictions in survivors' accounts later on. In his examination of this journey, he is seeking to find what went so wrong, what made this trek so vastly different from the hundreds of thousands of others that travelled West during that span when heading West was the thing to do? The author sets out to answer these questions and more in his analysis and does a thorough job with all the sources available to him. Aside from the sources mentioned previously, he also uses newspaper accounts, interviews, and diaries to complete his research.

Both texts are fantastic explorations of the doomed party and I recommend both for those who are interested.

Mini Reviews | Cults

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It always gets me when books like this show the authors as children (much like Jenna MisCavige Hill's book on escaping Scientology). They're so young and innocent and have no idea that what is happening to them is abuse, and they deserve so much better.

Rachel Jeffs is one of Warren Jeffs' 53 children whom he has with perhaps as many as 80 wives and in this she book recounts is excruciating detail what life was like living within the confines of the FLDS Church, run by her father and self-proclaimed Prophet. Jeffs' stranglehold on the cult is so strong that despite a life sentence plus twenty years, he still issues edicts from behind bars that his followers adhere to. Never doubt, he is still very much in control.

Yet Rachel found a way out and I deeply admire her courage and strength as she made her plans to escape. After years of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, she knew this was not okay, nothing about this was right, and she had to get away. Rachel was often punished for what the church viewed as transgressions by being isolated in a house by herself, and her children kept from her.

In 2015 though, Rachel pulled the trigger on her escape, fleeing with her children to her grandparents' home, finally safe from the only home she had ever known.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wish people would stop calling this a religion, it's a cult and we all know it.

That's really my only issue with the book - the subtitle.

Otherwise, this shit is bananas just like every other Scientology book I have read so far and I am HERE. FOR. IT.

It is so batshit insane that I can't stop picking up books about this cult. I mentioned above the memoir written by Jenna Miscavige Hill, but there are many others out there as well, and still more I want to read.

I was really surprised at just how cooperative the "church" was with Reitman. She was given access to current members and officials for interviews, as well as confidential documents that we might never know about otherwise. Yet still I wonder how much they also kept from her. She also interviewed numerous former members to keep the perspective balanced.

Reitman is a journalist and takes the approach of telling a factual story about Scientology. There are, of course, celebrity stories and Tom Cruise will forever be the couch-jumping poster boy, but there is tons of actual information here. Of course, a lot of those facts are ridiculous and terrible, so Scientologists still come off looking ridiculous and terrible, which a lot of them are.

For all the good the "church" claims it has done, such as volunteer ministers travelling to sites of devastation to render aid, whether natural or man-made disasters, all the negative can not be and must not be overlooked.

One need only to seek out interviews with former members, some of whom had previously dedicated their whole lives to the organization - not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And that right there is the root of it all - the money.

L. Ron Hubbard was a con man of the worst kind, bilking people out of their life savings for a chance at salvation. Yes, there is some level of personal responsibility that must be realized, but what about children born into Scientology, who never know any other way of life? Or those who are such outcasts, feel like they don't belong anywhere, and suddenly within the "church" they become someone?

It makes you wonder how much longer this can go on. How many more people have to come forward with the insane stories of being sent to far-flung outposts to 'plant a new church'? How many more will be harassed and see their lives destroyed because Miscavige is so rich, he's practically untouchable?

Mini Reviews | Elizabeth Acevedo

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I tore through this one so quickly, sobbing much of the time. I love Elizabeth Acevedo and she is without a doubt one of the best authors out right now, and clearly at the top of the YA stack. I got ahold of Clap When You Land as soon as I could after finishing The Poet X. It did not disappoint me one bit and was beautiful and stunning and heartbreaking.

The event that sets the story in motion is based on the real plane crash of AA587 on November 12th, 2001. The airplane crashed shortly after take-off from JFK. Everyone on board was killed.

For Yahaira Rios in NYC, she is called to the principal's office and learns of the crash from her mother. Her father has died.

For Camino Rios in the Domican Republic, she eagerly awaits the arrival of her father's flight from NYC, ready to spend another summer with him. Her father, too, has died.

So now the girls must navigate this strange new world, one without Papi, a man they both thought they knew. But his secrets, and his death, has changed both of their lives forever.

I was invested emotionally from the start. Watching both girls struggle to make sense of their new reality was heartbreaking and Acevedo's writing is so poignant and true-to-life.

The story is told in verse and the chapters alternate between Yahaira and Camino. Despite the fact that everything they thought they knew about their father has crumbled, both know that without a doubt, he loved them both very much.

Highly recommended.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was the first book I read by Acevedo (and her debut) and I fell in love with her writing right then and there. She is another author on my shortlist of must-reads.

Like Clap When You Land, The Poet X is told in verse. It is a kind of coming-of-age novel, but so much more, about sixteen-year-old-Xiomara. She struggles to understand who her mother is and how her mother's religion has shaped both of their lives, really. Xiomara has many other issues she faces daily as well and all tie in together to form the basis of the story where she discovers slam poetry and suddenly the world has opened up for her.

Yet, Xiomara still deals with pressure on all sides, even as she pours all her frustration and anger and hopes and needs into the pages of her leather notebook. She keeps it close, knowing her mother would destroy it in a heartbeat if she ever read Xiomara's words.

This book is so beautiful and empowering, and I wish that every teen who feels so seen and unseen at the same time would read it and know that they are not alone. That the pressure of trying to be yourself and find your voice when so many factors are working against you, it will pass.

Both novels are excellent and highly, highly recommended.

Mini Reviews | Natural Disasters

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Natural disasters have long been a source of endless fascination for me, starting when I was a child. No surprise then that books like this continue to interest me as an adult.

The book focuses on California and the San Andreas Fault and the information contained within it is not entirely new. Everyone knows the fault is massive, and has spawned countless secondary faults, many just as potentially deadly as the big one. Yet people live over the fault. People drive across it everyday on one or more of the dozens of highways and interstates. Both San Francisco and Los Angeles sprawl out over the fault - and no one seems keen to move away any time soon.

I found this to be an easy enough read, no science background required. yet still well-researched and in-depth as well, thoroughly explaining the geology needed to understand the San Andreas Fault. We are also given a history of the area and pertinent people, such as Andew Larson, the UC-Berkeley prof who named the fault in the late 1800s and Charles Richter, who developed and refined the scale we still use today to measure these beasts.

It is interesting to compare the jump in knowledge from the 1906 SF earthquake, to nearly 60 years later when plate tectonics were discovered. Up until that time, scientists believed that underground volcanoes caused the earth to move. Needless to say, the science has come a long way since then.

But even so, it has not come far enough, and I don't know that it can. We still can't predict earthquakes, and it is possible we will never be able to. Major earthquakes will continue to happen. But don't expect California to one day just go floating off into the Pacific Ocean. Instead the author maintains that the San Andreas Fault and all of its offshoots are actually pulling California apart. Between the fires and the earthquakes, California doesn't stand a chance.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I did not realize this was an older book, published in the 1970s. Even as a I read it, it seemed as if it were a more recent publication, while at the same time also reading as though it was an eyewitness reporters account. Not too shabby to make a reader believe to completely opposite things at one time.

The authors make fantastic use of sources not previously available to the public. They acquired documents from insurance companies, the Red Cross, the military, and also collections of eyewitness accounts of those who managed to survive one of the worst disasters in US history.

As with any other catastrophic event, there are heroes and villains. It will surprise no one that the powers that be were incapable of handling a disaster of this magnitude for a couple reasons - they were corrupt beyond reproach and had no idea what the hell they were doing.

Just as the title says, this truly is a minute-by-minute accounts, from those first terrible seconds in the early morning of April 18th, beginning at 5:13 AM. The book moves quickly and the reader can only hang on for the ride as we move quickly through the city, witnessing the horrors of that day and the aftermath of the fires raging.

One thing I also really appreciated was the interviews the authors did with survivors. It must have been quite difficult for them to share their stories, but I am so glad they did. They gave a depth to the story, sharing their grief over such an awful experience.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Our planet would not be what it is today, giving us life, were it not for natural disasters. We need them for our home to flourish and without these life-giving forces, our planet would die and so would we.

If we were not so arrogant, and did not think that time and time again we could thwart Mother Nature, these disasters would not so often result is huge losses of life.

Yet here we are, living on super active fault lines, building cities below sea level...you get the idea.

This book looks at several incredibly devastating disasters that have impacted humankind. From Pompeii to Katrina, there are many here that prove that not much has changed, and we still think we are in charge.

We know that our world is changing. As climate change continues to wreak havoc, we must learn from past mistakes. Temperatures are rising around the world, ice caps are melting, eventually major life changes are going to start happening for a lot of people living on the coasts. All kinds of natural disasters are getting worse, and will continue to do so. It doesn't have to be this way though, if we could just take five seconds to learn from our past.

The author does a fantastic job examining each natural disaster, then exploring how each impacted society dealt with the aftermath - what they did differently, what they predicted, what they got wrong. Not a bad way to spend a couple hours.

Mini Reviews | Ancient Egypt

 

I love Ancient Egypt so much. I want to visit and see all there is to see of that world. It also infuriates me that so much has been lost to history - and continues to be lost as smuggled pieces magically make their way to private collections. Egypt has been robbed of so much and deserves to get their history back.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Absolutely LOVED this one and could not put it down. Easily one of my top-five favorite books on Ancient Egypt. It's the perfect combination of academic and accessible for those who are not as fond of non-fiction as I am.

When one thinks of Ancient Egypt, most likely the first thing that pops into your head has something to do with tombs, mummies, the pyramids, etc. After all, these items make up much of the visible remains of this mighty culture - and mummies + funerary items travel well, all over the world on display.

In this text Dr. Naunton's primary focus is on what we HAVEN'T found yet - such as the tombs of some of the most famous rulers to ever live; think Cleopatra, Alexander, Nefertiti, and Imhotep (I know, I know, he was never Pharaoh, but he's still a big deal). Just think about that line-up for a second and what it would be like if even ONE were to come to light. People would go batshit crazy over it, and rightly so. I would be one of those people.

Yet he also looks at those at the reigns of some more obscure rulers as well, thus giving a well-rounded picture of the whole of Egypt's ancient world and not just those that blockbuster movies are made about. I found these lesser-known rulers' reigns to be just as fascinating as those mentioned above.

Here the author takes deep look into the lives of these rulers and what they accomplished in their time on the throne. Based on incredibly detailed scholarship, he also discusses what their tombs likely contained, how they were buried, and why their tombs have remained undiscovered for centuries. even better, he lays out how they might yet be found.

I appreciated the variety of images that accompanied the text, both color and black and white. The maps came in handy as well - as did the list of kings he included. I think we can all agree that scholarship on this massive period of time is far from complete, but this list with dates is the most up-to-date we have at the moment. And honestly that's what continues to draw people to Ancient Egypt - there's still so much more to discover.

This a must for anyone who happily "suffers" from Egyptomania. Absolutely brilliant. You will not be disappointed.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Another great read from Brian M. Fagan, one of the leading experts on this most ancient world. We meet a wide variety of people from many different periods, many who had one thing in common: they were super fucking greedy.

This mainly applies to the tomb robbers who beat modern archaeologists to these finds by thousands of years, to those who paid well for pieces to be spirited out of the country and into private collections. And even today, with so many artifacts on display around the world, sitting in museums far from their place of origin. These artifacts MUST be returned to Egypt, though I highly doubt it will ever happen unfortunately.

Fagan also introduces us to fledgling archaeologists, some who did their best to protect and preserve their finds and others who all but ripped stones, pillars, obelisks, etc. from their resting places.

The author tells the story in chronological order and it's not terribly hard to see why so many artifacts were lost - France and England both somehow thought that they had the rights to another country's history, and could tell that history better than Egypt. It's such a gross perspective. There were of course archaeologists who were in it for the history and not the money, but money ruled over everything else, and still does today. It certainly did not help that there were those within local government positions in Egypt who gladly took the money and handed over the history. Basically, the whole system sucked.

The first volume of this book was published in 1974, but I read the revised edition that came out in 2004. There was much to update and Fagan writes just as passionately about the newer discoveries as he did the earlier ones. He also does not shy away from critiquing the tourist industry and explains what should be obvious - tourism might be crucial to the economy, but it is destroying the very things tourists come to see and if not better protected, they will not survive. Stricter guidelines have been put in place over the years, and hopefully they are enough.

Fagan does a marvelous job bringing to life many of those who sought Egypt's ancient artifacts. yet he does an even better job with those who sought to preserve the history and keep it where it belongs. Incredible attention to detail and brilliantly written.

Highly recommended.

Mini Reviews | Wild Wild West

 

I have kind of a strange and specific love affair with the Old West. It started when I saw Tombstone, naturally. Never mind the historical inaccuracies! My 12-year-old brain didn't care (I was only ten when it came out, Mom made me wait until it was on VHS to see it) or even recognize, actually, those inaccuracies. I was forever from that point on destined to be in love with Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday and Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp.

As I began this set of mini reviews, I wandered over to IMDB to look at the entry for both Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, movies released within a year of one another, and can not remember why I have never loved Wyatt Earp as much as Tombstone. In fact, I don't ever recall seeing it. The cast alone was fantastic and it is probably one I am going to have to watch fairly soon.

Anyway, on to the reviews!

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

So the thing about Tombstone and the gunfight at the OK Corral is that it doesn't even matter what the true story is anymore - that the gunfight was really not that big of a deal and it didn't even happen there anyway. The myth has grown to such epic proportions that no matter what is written about it until the end of time, it will remain THE defining event that everyone associates with the Old West, even if it came at nearly the tail-end of the era it now embodies.

Guinn does a fantastic job putting together the real history and it was a page-turner like no other for me. In this sense, Guinn is 100% accurate with the subtitle in how this event "changed the American West". He does not mean that this non-event event changed the Old West itself, but changed and molded how we would perceive those days decades and now a century on. There is no question that 4 out of 5 people would say the OK Corral or Tombstone if asked to name a place in that time.

The research into this is massive, detailing everything we can possibly know about the Earps - complete with Warren and James, two Earps I did not even know existed, who had even been in Tombstone at various times when Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan lived there. Of course there is also Doc Holiday and Big Nose Kate, plus the Clantons and McLaurys, plus Johnny Ringo and Curly Bill of course. The backstory is phenomenally told, how the cowboys came to clash with the sometimes-lawmen. The author used a plethora of sources available for the first time here, including diaries and letters of those involved - even the sketch Wyatt drew of the shoot-out and its end. I learned so much more about Johnny Behan and his connection to Wyatt.

You won't find nearly as much information about Wyatt's vendetta ride to avenge Morgan's murder here as there was the lead-up to the gunfight. For that I highly recommend Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holiday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell by Tom Clavin, which is also superb. Instead, once the smoke has cleared so to speak, much of the aftermath involves the inquests into the deaths that occurred that day - Billy Clanton's, as well as the McLaury brothers.

Even though I love Tombstone dearly (true story - I just ordered the DVD because of course now I want to watch it), the real story is just as interesting, if not more so. It is no secret that the Earps were not always as law-abiding as they're made out to be in popular works. The book does a good job clearing away that bit of myth. One might even say they understand why the Clantons and McLaurys were so pissed off; you can't really blame them. So, there are not straight heroes and villains here, everyone is a little bit of both. And there is so much more information here than a movie would ever have room for to explain adequately. So, I see why the story was simplified for the big Hollywood blockbuster (except it kind of wasn't, I don't think. I don't actually remember.)

Highly recommend, especially for those who enjoy a good chunk of Old West history.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It is very easy to feel sorry for a lot of the women who became known as a Mrs. Earp at any point in their lives. They were often common-law wives who were easy to leave - as Wyatt himself could attest to. It would seem that the father of some of the most famous lawmen in history started off with this idea himself, marrying a total of three times in his life. The author is also quick to point out that while several of the Earp sons would go on to marry multiple times, there may be even more wives that we don't know about. I would not be surprised one bit.

I really enjoyed the focus of this book. The author does a fantastic job with what I imagine would be very limited source material to bring these women to life behind their passive roles in movies like Tombstone. The book is a quick read and I like that she includes transcripts of letters written by various Mrs. Earps. Live in the West would have been hard enough, but I could not imagine trying to survive out there while also following a husband with wanderlust in his veins. This is a very special group of women who are finally having their stories told and a must-read for those interested in the history of the West.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Just the kind of ladies I would love to read about! Much like the previous title, I was happy to find this gem and learn more about the women who populated the frontier towns aside from those who are already well-known.

Women in the West could be just as tough, if not more so, than the men they kept company with, if they chose to do so. Plenty of women were outlaws and gamblers with their own reputations, saloon owners or soiled doves. The point then, as it still is today for so many women, they did whatever they had to in order to survive. If that meant anything from prostitution to murder, then so be it.

Each woman in the book is given a certain amount of pages for her brief biography, recounting her adventures. I feel a book like this is important because in many cases, this might literally be all we know about many of these women and they deserve to have their stories told, out of the shadows of their male counterparts. Sadly, so many stories were similar in how they came to find themselves unattached in a dangerous time and place. Each chapter opened with a highlight or major event from the woman's life. The author then made great use of personal items, such as letters and diaries, or even interviews given later in life when their gun-slinging days were long behind them.

A recommended read for those with an interest in the period and/or badass women who took care of themselves.

Mini Reviews | Forgotten Train Wrecks

I'm not quite sure what it is about man-made disasters that make it impossible to look away. I am especially intrigued when it is an event that has occurred in the early 1900s, or earlier. I think part of it is because I compare everything of this nature to September 11. I think part of it is looking how we responded valiantly and also failed to on that day with all the resources we have now, and then looking to the past to see what they did or did not do with the resources they had. We are not nearly as far removed from mishandling disaster as we think we are - the last two months are proof positive of that.

 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Apparently I am one of the only people who has never heard of this accident, or the controversy over who wrote the song that so many know. Semi-related, the Old 97s were the band that Jennifer Aniston's character got tickets to see in The Break-Up and now the name makes sense, or at least the reference does.

If there is anyone else who does not know this story, a quick recap:

Fast Mail train No. 97 was behind schedule, operated by a newer engineer who had previously worked freight trains, so he was already at a disadvantage because he was not totally familiar with the engine he was driving. On September 27th, 1903, this would end tragically when the train derailed, falling from the trestle and crashing into the ravine below. In all, eleven people were killed, including the engineer, so we will never know exactly what happened in those last moments before the accident, nor will we ever know whether speed, his lack of experience with mail trains, or anything else played a part, or how big their roles might have been.

The author did a fantastic job of gathering sources and putting together the story. I did find in places it became repetitive, but overall that was not an issue. I found it to be a highly engaging read on a topic I knew nothing about. His use of primary documents - the eyewitness reports, court transcripts/testimonies, and interviews with descendants of those involved - aided him well in bringing readers back in time to that terrible day.

 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I stumbled across this book at the same time as I found the story of the Old 97 and found this story to be as engaging as the one above. In comparing the two, I feel like this one had a lot more information to offer, but this may be simply because this train was hauling passengers and not solely mail, so there were many more eye-witnesses and survivors to speak to.

One of the most interesting aspects of the story to me, and also the saddest, is the fact that we will never know exactly how many victims might have died in the crash. This has happened for two main reasons, first being that there could have been passengers on the train who we do not know about, perhaps people who had no family to miss them should they have disappeared suddenly. The second reason for this is that after the train cars burned, those who had been crushed when the car on its side slid off the track and pancaked onto the one below, remains were indistinguishable.  These remains were collected and buried in a mass grave, which has since been lost to time. Imagine what peace might be brought to descendants who never knew what happened to elder family members' loved ones. Imagine those who were alone being given the dignity of their own final resting place.

I bring this up because the author touches on this very real possibility with a man by the name of John Dowell. The author states this man was very likely on the train and killed in the crash, those his name goes unrecorded in history and would remain unknown had his friends never spoken of him, or gotten his name mentioned in a Georgia newspaper in relation to possibly having been on the train. And if Dowell is quite likely a victim, it stands to reason that there could have been others as well; the official death toll is recorded for posterity as 17 souls, but this total is probably too low.

This story has all the makings of a truly horrific accident. Despite making great gains in technology and the ways of travel, trains were still somewhat of a gamble. Rail workers were killed in alarming numbers and train wrecks were remarkably uncommon, so it is not totally surprising that people have not heard of these incidents before, at least outside of the area where they occurred. This particular wreck occurred due not to a mistake of man, but the fury of Mother Nature. This area in Virginia had seen terrible rain storms for days and nights, flash flooding that prohibited travel, washed out railways, left debris on the tracks, and more. Rail workers did their best to keep tracks clear for travel day or night, but what can you do when it is time for your shift, but you are trapped in your home due to rising flood waters, and you have to evacuate your wife and young child to the second level of your home so none of you die?

So we've got rain pouring, low visibility, lack of ability to communicate in any reliable way, and tracks about to get washed out and collapse under the weight of the train. Not only that, but the engine will fall into the ravine below, pulling several cars with it. Men, women, and children were either killed instantly, suffered painful deaths, or managed to escape with minimal injury. Some of the descriptions of injuries were truly horrifying, stories of people scaled by the steam from the boilers, while the boiler also sparked and quickly ignited anything that would burn - including those still trapped within the cars.

While like the above book that I spoke of, this book did also sometimes suffer from repetition. We hear quite a bit about a trio of young men traveling together and how devastated their town and families were in learning of their deaths. But, I also appreciated that we knew so much more about so many of the employees and passengers and it made the story come to life all the more.

As is true in every disaster, something like this brings out both the best and worst in others. There were stories of people who lived nearby coming to the site immediately to help however they could, of people running back to the previous station (communication lines were down) to bring help that way, and more. Survivors, both men and women, worked tirelessly to try to save others until the fire raged, preventing them from rescuing any others. The worst came in the form of some survivors scrambling to safety and never returning to assist, leaving others behind to die. Or scavengers, rushing to the crash site under the guise of helping, but in reality only there to pilfer whatever valuables they could from the survivors, the dead, and the dying.

In one of the final sections, the author provided brief biographies of every person known or thought to be on the train. When possible, we are given birth dates, home towns, and whatever information is still available to us now. Sometimes that was simply their job title at the rail company. Other times we might get a paragraph or two detailing the person's life.

I found this to be a highly readable account of a terrible wreck. The author has done much research to provide as much information as possible.

Mini Reviews | Minka Kent

I had such high hopes for this author after seeing some really positive reviews. I know that I am not a typical fiction/thriller reader, but I am branching out and finding some new authors and genres. I was so incredibly disappointed with both of these, it was almost enough to send me back down by non-fiction rabbit hole and wait not-so-patiently for Karen McManus to release The Cousins in the fall, and then give me more Nate in what I hope will be a third book in the One of Us Is Lying series. (Please, PLEASE, another book! I have to have more Nate and Bronwyn!!! PLEASE!!!)

Anyway. On to the books which were not great, and a waste of time I will never get back.

 ⭐⭐

Well, it could have been worse. I am glad I did not pay money for this and got it as my January First Reads from Amazon.

In the end, the book was super predictable and tried so hard to be something it's not - a real thriller. it ends up being nothing more than a dude with a grudge, some identify theft, and a completely ridiculous requirement of suspension of belief.

If you are planning to read the book, skip this part, because there will be some spoilers.

So this dumb-dumb Brienne was attacked one night leaving work and since then has been unable to live alone in this giant house that she inherited from her grandparents. Strange things start happening that make her question her sanity as her male roommate slowly starts to reveal more and more information about who she "truly" is (except isn't). There is the first major plot hole, RIGHT THERE. See, her roommate is pretending to be her husband to convince her she is someone else entirely. EXCEPT the event that kicked off everything in the first place was the mailing of an apartment key to Brienne, WHICH SHE NEVER WOULD HAVE RECEIVED IF SHE WAS NOT ACTUALLY BRIENNE! I mean, seriously.

The whole time I am sitting there reading, thinking this idiot truly will get herself killed because she is not going to the police, and has all these excuses why not and blah blah and FFS, you are living with someone who wants to kill you. She doesn't figure that out right away of course, but anyone with half a brain reading this will see it pretty quickly. And if I am doubting who I am, and being told I am someone I don't remember being, then you can bet your ass I am talking to the police ASAP, considering the fact that they would without a doubt know who you are based on the investigation into your previous attack that lead to this fucked up situation in the first place with you not being able to live alone. Ugh.

The whole body double situation was also really ridiculous, because how on earth did his girlfriend just happen to look enough like Brienne to try to pull this shit off? It makes no sense. None of it does.

The only reason I kept reading is because all that time I thought surely I was wrong, the twist could not be that obvious, it was a red herring. Nope. Sure wasn't. I was hoping for some redemption here but there was none.

Hard pass on this one.

 ⭐

What. The. Hell.

I was so hoping that When I Was You was a fluke, and this one would be better. After all, the ratings and reviews looked a lot better and it seemed like a much more interesting story-line.

There are drastically different plots running side by side and early on I had an inkling of how they might be connected, but was not totally sure. When Nic started 'discovering' things about her husband and her mind raced off to the worst possible option for the given situation, it was plausible to me. Here is this couple, unable to have children, world-travelers living in our very modern age, contrasted with two young women left alone in a cabin, deep in the woods who have had no contact with the outside world. It's clear that at some point, their stories will converge and I had some ideas on how this would happen.

ANY OF THOSE IDEAS WOULD HAVE BEEN WAY BETTER THAN WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

The story was solidly trucking along and I was thinking this could be a three or four star read. Then the many ideas I had for where it could be going were slowly peeled away as it became clear that none of my ideas would fit within the narrative as we learned new information, so I was even more anxious to get to the twist because it just had to be delicious.

Well, guess what?

IT WASN'T.

It was again simply too unbelievable. You would have to complete disconnect from reality in order to make this seem remotely plausible. Even worse than When I Was You. I have not been so let down by a book in a really long time, not counting the one up there that more so left me just thinking, "Why the hell was this nonsense even written?"

It kills me, because up until the reveal, things were great. I was genuinely captivated by the book, wondering how all the pieces would fit. I unfortunately discovered that not only do the pieces not fit, but they are obviously mixed in with pieces from some other book where they might actually make sense, and we only have half of them to begin with.

After these two duds, Minka Kent is an author I will not longer be reading.