Book Review: Humboldt: Life on America's Marijuana Frontier

When I lived in Northern California, a friend and I visited another friend who lived in Humboldt County. I remember being warned to look up in the trees before even thinking about smoking outdoors. At that time, the local law enforcement would wait for unsuspecting college kids to light up in the woods and then rappel down from trees to bust them - or so the story went. The other thing I remember about that trip was seeing the absolutely wonderfully crazy Kinetic Grand Championship - formerly known as the Kinetic Sculpture Race. Imagine two to five people racing over 40 miles in a bike sculpture that also needs to be able to move through sand and float on water. For these reasons and more, when I saw Humboldt: Life on America's Marijuana Frontier by Emily Brady I knew I wanted to read it.

The book centers on four different people: Mare - an older hippie, Crockett - a younger grower, Emma - a student who grew up in Humboldt, and Bob - a deputy sheriff who patrols all of the southern part of the county (usually by himself). Mare is interested in growing marijuana for medicinal use, Crockett wants to make as much money as he can before cannabis is legalized in the state and the black market is killed. Emma is trying to understand why so many of the young people she grew up with have died. And Bob realized a long time ago that the country's War on Drugs was a complete waste of time and money. Each person's stories are interspersed with the others to tell the larger story of what life is like for those who live in Humboldt. Brady spent more than a year living in the county doing research and gaining trust from the inhabitants. This is a compelling book with memorable characters and stories.

- Sarah

Book Review: Unreal City

“On Black Mesa we, as a society, are engaged in destroying some of our oldest sustainable Native American cultures so that people in Phoenix and Las Vegas can water their hundreds of golf courses, swim in swimming pools, and pretend they live in a desert miracle.”

Unreal City: Las Vegas, BlackMesa, and the Fate of the West by Judith Nies is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Arizona. She describes how public officials partnered with coal, utility and water industries to monopolize resources under the Hopi/Navajo reservations to fuel development in Las Vegas, Phoenix and California. Described as a ‘centuries-old land dispute’ between two tribes, Nies insists, “It is actually an example of a global phenomenon in which giant transnational corporations have the power to separate indigenous people from their energy-rich lands with the help of host governments.”

The history of corruption uncovered is deep and detailed. She ties together shady partnerships hidden behind the Hoover Dam, Central Arizona Project, and the Navajo Generating Station power plant near Black Mesa – all touted as heroic public works projects created to serve local communities while they were secretly generating huge profits for private corporations.  Read Unreal City  and you will discover a history unwritten in the pages of mainstream textbooks.

~ Betsy

The Deportation of Wopper Barraza

In The Deportation of Wopper Barraza, aimless Wopper Barraza drifts and drinks and, after his fourth drunk driving arrest, is deported to Mexico. His father views it as an opportunity for Wopper to rebuild the family rancho, and dispatches his son with a map and suitcase bulging with appliances and clothing to distribute among the locals. After arriving in La Morada, the luckless deportee discovers a squatter has planted the family fields and built a house on the Barraza land. Soon the squatter's daughter is sleeping in Wopper's bed, and maneuvering him to a political appointment on the platform of modernizing La Morada. But opposition is fierce and talk is treacherous, as Wopper navigates through the hidden agendas and artifice of small town politics. Told through multiple voices - including his pregnant American girlfriend and his parents - Wopper's deportation is a lively journey across multiple borders and cultures.

Letters of Note

Forget the totally dull cover; the promise of the subtitle, "An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience" rings refreshingly true. Spanning a wide range of centuries and cultures, Letters of Note delivers a fascinating mix of politics, art, science, history and human emotion expressed through letters, faxes, postcards, and even a message carved on a layer of birch bark circa 1400 B.C.

Paradoxically - in a culture of instant everything and e-mail ephemera, where letters may be relegated to Paleolithic artifact status - former copywriter Usher (master of the widely popular blog, Letters of Note) proudly admits his love for purchasing, studying, collecting and treasuring this form of expression. These letters are culled from his vast resources. They are often presented in facsimile, and then transcribed so that the penmanship is perfectly intelligible. Sidebars feature background information on the letter writer and recipient, and place the letter within historical context. Writers include both celebrities as well as many unknown correspondents.

A few of my favorites -

A letter from Queen Elizabeth to President Eisenhower, which includes her recipes for drop scones (serves 16.)

Iggy Pop's life-changing advice to a young fan.

Clyde Barrow's praise to Henry Ford - "I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one."

Annie Oakley's letter to President William McKinley as the Spanish-American War loomed, promising "a company of fifty lady sharpshooters at your disposal."

Correspondence between 12 year old Jim Berger and Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright had designed a home for Jim's father and Jim asked Wright to design a dog house for Eddie - his Labrador Retriever. He proposed paying for the architectural plans from money earned from his paper route.

RR@RR

Book Review: The Wolf

In a typical good guy/bad guy situation, you hardly expect to find yourself rooting for the organized crime families of the world. In The Wolf by Lorenzo Carcaterra, it's organized crime vs. terrorists. Vincent Marelli, head of US operations and our "hero", is the leader of the organized crime council, a group of international crime bosses. When his wife and daughters are killed in an airplane hijacking, Marelli convenes a meeting of the council to declare war. While there is a personal stake in discovering the perpetrators behind his family's deaths, he is also convinced that the chaos of worldwide terrorism threatens the financial stability of the organized crime empire.

Back and forth go the bad guys and the really bad guys with hardly a single policeman or anti-terror official to be found. It is quite entertaining to see the vast amounts of information Marelli and his gang can dig up with their unlimited funds. There is certainly no red tape and the bureaucracy is of an entirely different nature. The Wolf is a quick and easy read, unique in that the author pits two criminal enterprises against each other. You don't have to care about law enforcement, governments, or regular people. Just embrace la famiglia.

-Elizabeth

Great Geek Reads

Looking for some fiction that's not just literate, but also 1337? Try these! 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the great American video game novel. Its plot is basically a cheesy video game plot: will the main character dodge obstacles, evade the nefarious supervillain, escape dungeons, and save (well, okay, meet) the princess? But then its setting is a meta-commentary on video games: the world plays a giant virtual reality game. That's where the schools, jobs, and fun are now, leaving a bleak wasteland of "meatspace" behind. Hidden within this game are Easter eggs and challenges (some of which involve meticulous recreations of classic video games themselves) that the hero has to find and solve. And yes, the audiobook is totally read by Wil Wheaton.

You by Austin Grossman and Codex by Lev Grossman are by pop-culture savvy twin brothers who perfectly capture the rarely-delivered promise of infinite possibility in gaming culture. You draws on years of real-world video game design experience, while Codex boasts the Da Vinci Code-esque appeal of delving into a secret world's mysterious ancient texts.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan takes Codex and raises it one: what if Google got its hands on one of those ancient mysteries? Throw in some great bookstore-employee anecdotes, references to geek arcana from ancient Apple hardware to Ruby data visualization to typography, and you've got a perfect e-Read.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (also available as a free download on the author's website) takes you on a hilarious and mind-bending adventure in a post-capitalist Disneyworld, where reputation is everything.

Redshirts by John Scalzi is fun for Trekk[er|ie]s who always wondered about the inner lives of the semi-interchangeable, frequently disposable "Redshirts." It will also appeal to the better-socialized (I kid, I kid!) who can gloss over the in-jokes for a lightweight sci-fi caper.

And let's throw one more bonus mention to Andy Weir's addictive debut The Martian, which Elizabeth reviewed recently. It's basically Island of the Blue Dolphins meets Gravity. Does it have geek cred, you wonder? Let's just say that an ASCII chart is of pivotal plot importance, and leave it at that.

Are any of your favorites missing? Nerd rants welcome in the comments!

Happy reading,
Jenny

Book Review: Talking to the Dead

Talking to the Dead is the first book in a new series by Harry Bingham.  Fiona Griffiths is a policewoman in Cardiff, Wales.  As the most junior member of her investigative unit, her job is to do what she is told.  Fiona is intelligent, efficient, and intense.  She also has a problem with following orders.

When Janet Mancini, a former prostitute, and her six year old daughter, April, are found murdered in a squalid drug house, Fiona is determined to solve the crime.  Janet has definitely been trying to make a better life for herself and her daughter.  She has a job, a nice apartment and is described as a loving and caring mother. Why were they even at the drug house? Things just do not add up in Fiona’s mind, especially when a credit card belonging to a missing billionaire is found with their bodies.  Although Fiona has been assigned to another case, she ignores orders and investigates the murders. She feels close to little April and wants to solve her murder. After all, Fiona, like April, knows what it is like to be dead.

The heroine in this book is as intriguing as the mystery she solves. Fiona has many secrets and the reader will enjoy the twists and turns in this tale. Talking to the Dead is recommended by the Mystery Book Club at Wheeler Taft Abbett, Sr. Library.

~GilbyG