Bugged

Finished July 5

Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessed with Them by David MacNeal, with illustrations by Michael Kennedy

This informational books looks at bugs through many lenses, with each chapter looking more closely at one particular type of bug. After an interesting encounter with an entomologist studying dung beetles mentioned in his introduction, the author continues to tell engaging stories about his journalistic research into this subject and his willingness to explore unusual activities to do so. 

His first chapter is about collectors of bugs, looking at entomologist taxidermy. Here, as in all the following chapters, he talks about the history of this subfield of entomology, the pioneers in the field, what we know from anthropological history, and what we are learning now. This chapter has a closer look at beetles, and public education.

The second chapter looks at burrowing insects, with a concentrated look at ants. 

The third chapter looks at reproduction both in the wild and in laboratories. Here there is a closer look at spiders.

The fourth chapter looks at insects that fly, and here he looks at fleas, mosquitoes, and other carriers of disease, as well as disease in the forest industry.  He travels to Brazil as part of his research. 

The fifth chapter looks at entomological pests and he accompanies a pest control operator on the job. Here there is a closer look at bedbugs and cockroaches. He also looks at insecticide use in agriculture. 

The sixth chapter looks at beneficial aspects of insects and the role they play in the economy. He covers the use of beneficial insects in pest control, how insects process both natural and manmade waste and even visits a body farm research facility in Texas. Another interesting aspect here is the use of entomology in criminal cases. 

The seventh chapter looks at medicinal uses of bugs from folk medicine to more recent clinical applications. He even tries to outfit his own pet cockroach with a robotic implant. One interesting potential use of the combination of technology and insects is in search and rescue situations. He also talks about how studying insect anatomy can help in medical applications. 

The eighth chapter looks at businesses that make money from bugs from silkworms to natural dyes to ecotourism. He looks at the pet insect business in Japan and issues around smuggling insects across borders.

His ninth chapter looks at insects as food and we see Chirps, chips made from crickets, ground bugs becoming protein powder, and . He looks at the difficulty of overcoming mindset around eating bugs, and goes on a Food Bug Crawl in Tokyo which includes fried caterpillars, ant-ohol drinks, black wasp larvae boiled with couscous, kebabed combos, and even spiders and centipedes. Back home, he even hosts a dinner including bugs as food for a group of friends. 

His final chapter looks at honeybees and the problems of colony collapse and other disease outbreaks. He goes to a Scottish monastery to see their bee operation and to Greece to try their unique honeys. 

I found this book both educational and entertaining. As this book is from 2017, I'm sure that there are more recent discoveries and advances in knowledge that have happened since. 

Too Good to Be True

Finished June 6

Too Good to Be True by Sheila O'Flanagan

This novel is a combination of genres. Partly romance, partly women's fiction, it follows two Irish adults as they navigate whirlwind romance, the realities of living with someone else, family dynamics, and career issues. 

Carey Browne is a woman who works as an air traffic controller, and can handle unpredictable situations in her work. She lives with a co-worker, has a weakness for shoes, and is confident in herself. She and her friends from work party a lot, but they take their jobs seriously. When she takes some downtime to visit a former co-worker who now lives in New York City, she meets Ben Russell. Ben and his older sister Freya are close and after he had an up-and-down career experience in the tech field, they joined forces to run a wellness store. They now have several branches, and Ben has a meeting with a supplier in New York. There is chemistry between the two and after a few days together, Ben proposes marriage and Carey accepts. They make it real in Las Vegas. 

When they get home, they go back to their real lives, Carey moves in with Ben, and they break it to their families. Neither family takes it well. So that and the realities of living together, with Carey's work schedule that can have her working very early or very late, takes a toll on the new relationship. 

They also discover that neither of them have revealed all their relationships from the past, When exes start giving them a hard time about moving on, and they become aware of some of those secrets, Ben and Carey start to question everything about their relationship and emotions get very heated. 

We see things from both their viewpoints, and see their family dynamics, their dating history, and their fear of vulnerability. 

They both grow as a result, on both the personal and professional fronts, and we them move forward from just living their lives to planning their futures. I found this a quick read despite the length of the novel, and enjoyed the different storylines within the main story. 

The Apothecary's Curse

Finished January 3

The Apothecary's Curse by Barbara Barnett

This story has mystery, pain and suffering, romance, and friendship. Gaelan Erceldoune is an apothecary in Victoria London, working in Smithfield and helping the poor as best he can. He has a dedicated clientele who depend on him. But he is threatened by a man who controls much of the crime going on in his neighbourhood, and has isolated himself lately from his colleagues after the death of his wife and child. When a former acquaintance, Simon Bell, comes to him in desperation for a remedy for his wife's illness, he gives in and supplies a medication he has never created before. When it doesn't work as expected, Simon takes the remainder of the flask, and finds himself changed in an unexpected way.

When his world is destroyed shortly thereafter, and he becomes an object of experimentation in Bedlam, he nearly loses his mind. When Simon eventually learns of Gaelan's situation, he saves him, taking him into his own home, and requests a solution to the problem he himself now finds himself in. 

Revealing his own secrets, Gaelan and Simon join together to search for the book that Gaelan has been entrusted with by his father. 

By 2016, the two are still searching, and Simon follows every clue he can, growing ever more desperate. When Gaelan's actions put him in danger of revealing his secret to the world, he finds himself helped by a woman he never expected.

This is a story of cruelty, greed, and man's inhumanity to each other. But there are pockets of hope, of selflessness, and of true caring. It is a story of magic, but one less unbelievable than most. 

Gaelan is a man who loves strongly, and who cares not only about those close to him, but for all humanity, and his sufferings and resulting PTSD haunt him throughout his life. 

I found myself drawn into this book, not wanting to put it down, hoping that the characters would find some kind of happiness. 

The Sparrow Sisters

Finished July 24
The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick

This book takes place in a small seaside town in New England called Granite Point. The town's only doctor has recently retired and sold his practice to Henry Carlyle, a doctor who has previously worked in emergency medicine in Boston and in the military in Afghanistan. He has a leg injury and a back story that is gradually revealed.
The town's residents are friendly and close knit. Among them are three sisters who live together in the house that they grew up in, and who run a garden business selling plants, flowers, and produce. There were four sisters, but one died of cancer, under the care of the retiring doctor. The youngest sister Patience (from Impatiens) has a touch that she may have inherited from an ancestor who was accused of being a witch. Patience uses the herbs and other plants they grow to make tonics that many people in the town rely on. The new doctor is a bit taken aback by this practice, but when he meets Patience, they have a connection that they both acknowledge.
The other two sisters, Sorrel and Nettie are protective of Patience and also have their own personal connections to men in the town that they've never acted upon. There is also a young boy in town, whose mother died and whose father isn't coping well. He hangs around the gardening business a lot and Patience has taken him under her wing, teaching him plants and giving him cookies from the amazing bakery in town. He's got some health issues and when he's off his meds, Patience has used a tonic to help and also tried to get his father to step up.
One interesting thing that becomes a plot point is the way that Patience's moods manifest. Different herbal scents come off her due to her mood, and the weather seems to be affected as well. Her body temperature fluctuates as another sign of what's happening to her internally.
When a tragedy hits the town and a local reacts emotionally, a county prosecutor sets his sights on Patience and things get really crazy in town.
I found this book fascinating and I liked the way that the people in the town reacted under the pressure, particularly the women.

Rosemary Cottage

Finished January 14
Rosemary Cottage by Colleen Coble, performed by Devon O'Day

This novel is part of a series of novels set at the fictional town of Hope Beach, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As the book opens, Amy Lange, a midwife, is returning to the cottage she owns at Hope Beach, the Rosemary Cottage in the book's title. She is still mourning her older brother Ben, who co-owned the cottage with her, and who disappeared months ago while surfing in heavy seas. His body wasn't found, but his surfboard was found with the marks of shark teeth.  She recently received an email leading her to believe that Ben's death was not as everyone believes, and that it may have been murder. Coast Guard officer Curtis Ireland lost his sister Gina around the same time as Ben died. She was killed by a boat while swimming offshore, but the boat was never identified. Curtis is raising her daughter Raine, and he hasn't told Ben's family that Raine was Ben's daughter.
As Amy finds out the truth about Raine, finds herself becoming drawn to Curtis, and starts becoming comfortable in the town again, she decides to stay permanently, addressing the need for someone with her skills in the community. She and Curtis begin working together to look into Ben's death, and soon they also believe Gina's death may be related. But do their actions put them in danger as well, and is another threat looming that could take Raine away from both of them?
This book has romance, danger, a strong faith by both main characters, and through Amy, a leaning toward natural healing methods.
A short commentary at the end of the book gave background on how her interests contributed toward the inclusion of some plot elements, and gave me information on the unusual pronunciation of the author's first name as ko-lean.