"An Immense World: how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us." by Ed Yong

 

Publisher: Random house

Copyright: 2022

ISBN: 9780593133231

An immense world is a fascinating book that examines the world of senses. Most people consider the fact that they have five senses smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch. However this is an old concept (essentially what they have been taught in grade school, and that has persisted into adulthood) and we now know that there are many more senses that need to be considered.

Mr. Yong has broken his book down into eleven chapters, that deal with smells and taste, light, colour, pain, heat, contact and flow, surface vibrations, Sound, echoes (as an echo-location), electric fields, and magnetic fields. All of which are studied in laboratories around the world to hopefully better understand how animals and humans perceive their world.

The book goes into an amazing amount of detail, but is extremely easy to read and I'm sure it will be a book that will be referred to for many years to come.

This is a book that should be in every classroom, and school library.

Highly recommended.

"Guilty Pleasures" by Laurell K. Hamilton

 

Publisher: Jove Books

Copyright: 1993

ISBN: 9780515134490

This was a very different book that I normally read, and the reason I read it is because I happen to have 

picked up another book in the series without realizing it was a series, so I figured I'd better start at the beginning to attempt to figure out what the story was all about. Unfortunately this book did not accomplish this.

"Guilty Pleasures" is the first in a relatively large series of novels featuring Anita Blake who is a vampire hunter. While this might sound like a rather interesting profession  to have a character have, the story unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations. We are thrown into a world where for some unexplained reason vampires, along with various were-creatures, zombies and ghouls all exist albeit with a fair bit of tension. There are human groupies who idolize vampirism, and there is a church of the undead where people who wish to become vampires can you join. 

Unfortunately, we are given virtually no information with regard to backstory and world building as to how this happened. In addition, as this book is written in first person it will likely be rather difficult for the reader to comprehend what could possibly have brought about the societal changes to allow something like vampires etc. to exist alongside humans.

Now I concede that this may be the accepted standard for this genre, however in my opinion it is stretching the "willing suspension of disbelief" past the maximum. 

Outside of this, the characters are quite two dimensional and very difficult to like, or comprehend. In addition there are lots of characters, most of whom are just a name and a brief description.

Sorry, Anita Blake fans but I'm very much on the fence whether I will read anymore of this series.

"Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs" by Ari Wallach

 

Publisher: HarperOne 

Copyright: 2022

ISBN: 9780063275881

The theme of this book is one that is rather different especially nowadays. It is about taking the long look at your life, the world around you, and the information you get from various sources in that world.

The author draws on aspects of history, theology, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and various other resources to teach people how to look ahead and plan for the future. This allows the practitioner to relieve stressful events, allow them to cooperate better with others, boost their creativity and many other things.

It doesn't really matter what aspect of life you are thinking about at the present time long path is likely relevant as it allows you to make decisions that will help you in the future, By enriching your life and hopefully making your descendants proud of how you handled your life.

And extremely interesting, and thought-provoking read. Highly recommended. 

 

"The Secret World of Og" by Pierre Burton (1920-2004)

 

Publisher: McClelland and Stewart

Copyright: 1961

ISBN: 0771013868

This book is a lot of fun to read, it is obviously a children's book, and one I've had in my collection for many many years. I can remember one of my elementary school teachers reading it to me our class in the mid 60s. And I subsequently read it to my daughters when they were young.

The story tells the tale of five children who discover a secret passage underneath her playhouse leading to a underground civilization a little green people who primarily speak by saying the word "Og". A few can speak English, or at least a version thereof as they learned the language through comic books, children stories, etc. In addition to this the little people act like the characters they have read about in the comics, which leads to sound rather humourous encounters.

The storyline is very straightforward and would be an easy read for anybody in the middle elementary grades (grades three and up), and would make a very good story (as I know for certain) for parents to read to their children.

There was never any sequel to this book to the best of my knowledge, but it would've been nice if there was.

Highly recommended.