christianreader | December 2008 boolist

Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Didion writes about life in the sixties/seventies...but she writes in a unique way. I'm not sure if I can describe it. She writes in first person and almost like she's talking/thinking out loud, and she writes with a lot of slang. At any rate, this was a book I had to read for school and for the most part, I didn't enjoy it except for one chapter which was also called "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" where she talks about the drug culture in San Francisco. I found it particularly interesting because my parents were young people in the sixties, so some of the "hippie culture" that they talk about is exactly what Didion writes about.

Major Problems in California History edited by Sucheng Chan and Spencer Olin
Another school book which was important and interesting for the class, but I wouldn't recommend it for fun reading. It was a bunch of primary sources (i.e.: documents) for various periods of California history.

Kate's Choice by Louisa May Alcott
This is a short book of three short stories that I got for Christmas. The stories are sweet, but not nearly as well-developed or enjoyable as Alcott's complete works, but the stories were of a similar nature to An Old Fashioned Girl.

Bomb Squad: A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit by Richard Esposito and Ted Gerstein
These two reporters spent a year following, training, and working with the New York City Bomb Squad. Focusing on the year 2004, the authors focus not so much on the events or stress-filled situations, but the bomb technicians themselves. As appropriate, the authors do "go back" and tell the history of the Squad, important people and events. I'm fascinated by law enforcement and all that that entails, so I found this book to be very interesting. A few facts that I learned:

The Bomb Squad has been in existence for about 103 years.
During that 103 years, only 225 police officers have been part of the elite Bomb Squad (compared to the NYPD force which consisted of over 500,000 officers over the century plus).
In 2004, the Squad consisted of 33 men.
They make about 3,000 "bomb runs" a year. Thankfully a large portion of them are false alarms, but in these cases, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Their protective suit weighs something like 90 pounds, and is so hot that the tech can lose three pounds on a 12-minute walk to and from a suspicious package.

Hehe, okay, so I'm officially a weirdo, but I found those facts to be very interesting. At any rate, if you're interested in this type of stuff, I would suggest reading it. :-)

Total books read in 2008: 60
Fiction: 14
Non-fiction: 26
Biography: 5
Young Adult/Children: 15