BOOK REPORT--

Under the Surface by Tom Wilber

While this book looks at the economic and environmental challenges of drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation it is germain to Richland County where disposal of liquid fracking waste only recently entered our area's consciousness.  Fracking is the process of forcing chemical laced liquids under extreme pressure into wells in an effort to open horizontal seams around the vertical drill hole thus increasing the quantity of the flow of petroleum or natural gas.  The question then becomes are we willing to accept the obvious risk of polluting our ground water in return for increasing our supply of fossil fuels.  This is a journalistically balanced look with a good peek at consequences most people do not want to endure.


The Lower River by Paul Theroux

Ellis Hock is maturing through a placid life in this novel as a storekeeper in Massachusetts when his wife finds his email file is loaded with sizzling dalliances; all innocent but she is unconvinced and suddenly Hock is estranged from all things normal.  He then realizes the one place he wants to go is a dusty African village in Malawi where he spent four of the most exciting years of his younger life. Naturally, things of his Peace Corps memory have changed and he winds up struggling with escape rather than basking in enjoyment.


Five Days that Shocked the World  by Nicholas Best

Subtitled "Eyewitness accounts from Europe at the end of World War II", the  book closely examines five days in the Spring of 1945 when the war in Europe was belching to a close.  Readers are in Hitler's bunker when he and his mistress commit suicide.  We are in Italy when Mussolini and his mistress are mutilated and hanged.  We are in Pozzuoli, Italy where Romilda Villani is living in squalor with her two illegitimate children Sofia and Maria, Sofia being a war casualty that rescuing US soldiers described as "...so ugly and skinny at the age of 10 she looked as if she had never had a square meal in her life."  We came to know her in later life as Sophia Loren.  The book is an outstanding read.