BOOK REPORTS—

Eureka by Jim Lehrer

Lehrer, of public broadcasting fame, uses fiction to craft a delightful story of a nearing-60 executive who acquires toys that childhood denied him—and escapes. Otis, the CEO of a midwestern insurance company obtains a very expensive toy firetruck, a football helmet, a Red Ryder BB gun and a vintage Cushman motor scooter. His intolerant wife acuses him of acquiring a mental illness. This is 228 pages of speed reading—could not put it down.


Prometheus’s Child by Harold Coyle

A rip snortin’ tale about private military companies hired by many countries including the US to do the kind of work that requires deniability by the foggy bottom crowd. This yarn takes us to the Saharan Desert of Africa where raw material for nuclear weapons is being mined and hijacked. Ultimately readers are treated to a tussel on the high seas. Coyle can always be counted on for an action-packed read.


The Arctic Event by James H. Cobb

Nearly 400 sizzling pages in a paperback read; this story pits a US covert team against- Russian Spetznaz troops-against terrorists in a page turning recovery effort of Cold War Soviet anthrax in the frozen north. Outstanding thriller—and the good guy not only wins the battle but the lady as well. But, a slick marketing ploy that makes the book look like one of Robert Ludlum’s was disgusting.


An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker

This is a marvelous journey, exploring the science of our atmosphere, by an award-winning author who happens to have a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cambridge. Imagine pilots flying high enough to discover rivers of air flowing at multiple hundreds of miles per hour (the jet stream), or, a poor farmer who figures out why storms move in circles by doing his equations with a pitchfork on a barn door—a great peek at some science without typical, textbook stuffiness!


A WALK IN THE WOODS—

Saturday’s blog will feature a piece on a 5 kilometer hike at the Mohican State Park Campground sponsored by the Mohican Trails Club. Stop by and enjoy a vigorous romp in the forest.