More books read

On the treadmill is Longitudes and Attitudes by Freidman. I wasn't sure I wanted to read anything more by him after I read that he said that the US could use a good Chinese dictatorship. I bet he wouldn't have said that when Bush was president. But after all, I did not read his statement in context, and further, I don't know that he wrote that until I look up the piece in which he allegedly said such. So, I'm reading this book where he trumpets freedom and western civilization over and over and writes to Osama bin Laden the letters he thinks Bush should write.

In bed I'm reading Taliban by Ahmed Rashid published shortly before 9/11. Afghanistan has been screwed long before America showed up. Pakistan gives money and arms to whoever they think will support them. India give money and arms to whoever opposes Pakistan's people. Iran gives money and arms to the Shia. Saudi Arabia gives money and arms to the Sunni. Uzbekistan gives money and arms to the Uzbeks. Of course, at one time, America gave money and arms to whoever opposed Russia. Once Russia pulled, America tried to retrieve a lot of those weapons to no avail.

Much more fun to read was Bloodsucking Creatures by Anthony Fredericks: Absolutely beautiful photography and fascinating facts until the last stupid sentence: ...the most misunderstood bloodsucker is protecting us from the most dangerous bloodsucker. I'll bet an editor added that to jazz up the ending. Since vampire bats don't eat mosquitos, the sentence is false and offensive.

Dark Banquet   Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures by Bill Schutt was a fun read of personal encounters with vampires etc. I didn't like the part where he trumpeted evolution and pronounced creationists stupid and then he did not show one fact about the evolution of bats. Aw, come on, don't give me Just So stories, give me facts! I did like how he showed the differences between the different kinds of vampire bats.

Chopstick by Sandra Byrd was a fun fast read about girls sacrificing for each other.

A Time to Embrace by Karen Kingsbury was a touching. I can see the strings and know exactly how she is pulling them, but at the end of every one of her novels I'm still going Wah wah wah, dampening the pillow.

The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson. Fascinating, fascinating sf, even though the biology of the aliens requires infanticide, ovacide, suicide after living hundreds of years, and the allowing of most of the children to die at thirty years of age. One keeps going Ewww until the biology is explained.

I finished the Many-Coloured Lands books by Julian May and started Blood Trillium. Went a few chapters and dropped it. Witches, special stones, Dark Wizardly menace to the whole land. Eh.

I started to label books and wrap them for Rwanda schools in the hope that brother-in-law Chris will include them in the cargo he will be sending when the Kim Foreman Bible Institute just outside a gate of the National University of Rwanda is built enough to accept furniture.