Consensual Hex--#68 finished

This is about a freshman girl in college that has trouble fitting in that gets selected for a sort of witchcraft class and the teacher includes her and 3 others into a coven.  They learn some about magic and their powers but as a group still struggle with each other.  There is date rape going on with boys from a nearby college and those boys are warlocks.  A fight ensues and the coven gets pretty violent.  For me this read as like a sort of bi-polar person coming to grips with herself and not really succeeding.  That or some other state of not really reality.  I have logged this book into Goodreads and when reading some of the reviews found out there is a big controversy about the book and author.  About writing about a group at her college--a little too much non-fiction I guess.  I didn't get too far into it but sounds sad for all involved. 

I did post on PBS, there was 1 WL for the book and figured can at least mail it off at this point. 

Lab Rats--#67 finished

The rest of the title: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us.  I pretty good read about the culture of Silicon Valley has sort of permeated into other work and jobs.  The idea of crazy hours, moving from one job to the next, no pensions, crazy work/reporting structures, being monitored the whole time at work, etc.  This is a lot of how work has changed, certainly computers is a big driving factor on this.  It is also the crazy valuations given to the dot.com businesses to where the traditional businesses probably feel they have to do these things to compete or risk getting bought out.  What struck me in the book was talking about a quote from Milton Friedman where to paraphrase, business is only out to make profit.  This is a short term view great for shareholders but long term not so good for the health of the business, employees, towns they work in and basically the US economy.  A rethinking of capitalism probably needed and might be what we are seeing with the social democrat winning nomination for mayor of New York.  I don't really enjoy reading about business but thought this wasn't too bad.

There are zero copies on PBS but no reason to post right now either.

The Last American Road Trip--#66 finished

This is a book that I bought at where the local author was giving a talk about her book.  She has her Phd with emphasis on authoritarian studies--I think that is correct and she has strong feelings about our leadership/government for the last several years.  Especially Trump but with plenty of blame for Democratic party as well.  She sees our American freedoms going away, she sees climate change that is changing the world we live in, she sees the super-rich--well controlling most things now.  Overall maybe a bleak future for the US.  This is sort of the reason for the family road trips to see national and state parks.  It started before the pandemic but Covid just made it more necessary for her to show her kids America as it is before awful changes come.  Can't say that I see her negatives as bad as she does and don't feel any changes would be that awful but the beginning of Trump 2nd term does put her ideas into a little more focus.  I have not visited almost any of the places she has mentioned & maybe wish that I had but timing and traveling is hard--our vacations were more toward being with my family.  I enjoyed reading this book probably more than the other 2 I have read by her.  I have another one that was just before this one that I will have to get to at some point also.

There are 5 WL for this book on PBS but this is a keeper.  Local author & one that I saw giving a talk on this book.  I didn't wait around afterwards for autograph though, maybe I should have.

No Justice--#65 finished

A good quick read about a guy that owns a computer programming business that sounds like just him and his secretary/receptionist but he is also a vigilante assassin as well.  This is in Tampa, Florida area.  His wife as murdered and he had reached out to a guy to get vengeance and his sideline business took off.  He only takes jobs where the guy is a really bad person.  A hooker that became a friend when he was getting over his loss before it was getting too serious and he broke it off abruptly, is now needing help.  She was being threatened by a local gang leader and he agrees to help out.  It moves beyond just this one guy to where he has to take out the whole gang & then a group of child porn guys as well.  Good action & easy to read.

There were no copies on PBS so I have posted it already, not sure if it will move or not.  It looks like this is first in a series so might look for more as well.

Breathing Fire--#64 finished

The rest of the title is:  Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California's Wildfires.  The author follows a team of fire fighters through interviews and then after they get out as well.  Lots of information about their training and how better off they are in this training than in regular jail/prison but of course they are big risks in fighting fires and one firefighter does die.  With the CA fires in the news every year and especially in January when big parts of the LA area were under fire, figured this was a book to read.  Interesting read overall.

There are 4 WL for this book on PBS so will probably post and mail off at some point.

The Death and Life of Bobby Z--#63 finished

This was a case of needing an older mass market paperback that would fit into my pocket and this is the book I selected.  The Muny shows were starting and I think there was a doctor appointment in there too.  This was published in 1997 so older qualifies I guess, even though that doesn't seem that old to me--ha ha.  A criminal sentenced to life in CA, is offered a chance at a sort of freedom--he looks enough like a drug dealer Bobby Z to impersonate him during an exchange with another drug lord.  From there everything goes sort of haywire.  He latches onto a young boy that is supposedly Bobby Z's son and is able to escape and stay ahead of everyone that is looking to kill him.  Not too bad, not a great story but sounds like would have made a good movie, not sure why it didn't.

It is a rough old copy of this book so I will put it in my give away pile, can't post on PBS.

My Vanishing Country--#62 finished

 This is a memoir by Bakari Sellers, a political analyst on CNN.  I have seen him on the Abbey Phillip show & really liked what he was saying so when I saw his book at 1/2 Price Books and was like $2.00, I bought it.  He has had a really interesting life as well as interesting opinions.  I thought I was sort of up on things but I hadn't heard of the state police shooting in Orangeburg, SC in 1968 before the Kent State shootings/killings.  Bakari's father was charged & spent time in prison for this even though at that time he was not at the protest, he was at other times.  How this changed his family's life and then Bakari is a really interesting part of his life story.  I enjoyed this book and look forward to continuing to see Bakari on CNN or maybe back in elected politics.

There are 4 WL for this book on PBS so might post & send away but no hurry to do so at this point.