A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

On February 11, 2019February 18, 2019 By upstateasbIn History, Nonfiction, Outdoors & Nature, Travel LiteratureLeave a comment

Had a sampling good time (admittedly not front to back), and “weirdest state” is the author’s opinion, not mine! However, we had an aunt in Florida, married several times, who had a dog she named Mister. It gave her a kick to go to the door and call, “Here, Mister, Mister,” she said. A little weird, I guess. Mr. Wright lives in Florida and calls this “…a collection of factoids, oddments, stories, and backstories…”. I call it fun. Let’s see. Florida remained loyal to Britain during the Revolution, so no fourteenth colony. How “oh wow” rich is that laid back Jimmy Buffet who, we’re told, is Warren Buffet’s distant cousin? What happened to the Florida of Fifties and Sixties vacations, Silver Springs and glass-bottomed boats, the mermaids of Weeki Wachee? Did Gore or Bush win the contested 2000 Presidential race in Florida, and how many types of “chads” were there? Ha, there were four identified and named! One was a swinging chad. Didn’t you date him? Florida is known as the “Road Kill State”, and there’s an interesting flipside. White-tailed deer kill more humans than sharks, alligators, bears, snakes and insects combined. A recipe for Tang pie is here too. Check it out on April 30!

Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by St. Martin’s Press / Thomas Dunne Books via NetGalley. I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

Erika Swyler’s Light from Other Stars

On February 5, 2019February 18, 2019 By upstateasbIn Fiction, Literary Fiction, Sci-Fi / DypstopianLeave a comment

Entropy. Accelerating/decelerating half-life. De-organizing systems. I understand nothing. Science, technology, Earth is mid-Apocalypse, and a failing space ship carries four pioneers to an unnamed planet. My mind goes “Yadda, yadda, yadda.” And yet. And yet…. You must begin in a tiny Florida town, Easter, on the day Challenger explodes. In a small college lab, an experimental machine named Crucible activates; and time begins to move forward, backward, to slow. Water freezes, ponds boil and frogs scream, viscous liquid drips from power lines. Then, in Easter, time stops.

But, you see, this book, this story, does not focus on science and technology, or on an imaginary world. Rather, it is built around its characters, human beings speaking and thinking as we might, and what treasures they are. At its core there is Nedda, a prodigiously gifted eleven year old, her mother, a brilliant chemist who bakes experimental cakes and her father, the prof who created Crucible. No matter that I don’t understand entropy. What matters is that I will never forget this story and these people. One of my two best reads so far this year. Shines as brightly as the light from any star in any galaxy real or imagined. Hitting bookstores on May 7 (Bloomsbury USA).

Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Bloomsbury USA / Bloomsbury Publishing via NetGalley. I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed herein are my own.