Good Stuff

Terror's Echo:  Transgressions Novellas 7,8 and 10 was an excellent collection of stories.  I mean, think about it, Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) was the editor?  And one of the stories was a Keller story from Block???  Even though I had read the Keller story a long, long time ago, it was just as good the second time around and how I wish he would write another.
I don't think I had read any John Farris before, but this one was good, good, good.  I am always mixed about Stephen King, of course, but the story in here was excellent.  A great, great, great collection. 

Disaster!

Back in my days in the south, Bethel Park, PA, my buddy Rachel and I would run around having disasters very often.  "I'm having a disaster!" could be heard nearly every day.  Now of course, we were a bit dramatic.  There is no need for Lauren Tarshis to write an I Survived the 1990s in Bethel Park.  Bethel Park was a wonderful place in which to work, shop, eat, learn, karaoke and have adventures.

The disasters written about in The Unthinkable:  Who Survives When Disaster Strikes- and Why are the serious, horrible disasters.  The man-made and the natural disasters.  I read this one because I really enjoyed Amanda Ripley's The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way. 

This was a very quick read, even though it is hard to hear about horrible tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina and September 11.  It was fascinating to read about Rick Rescorla, a true hero of a man who made it possible for nearly all of Morgan Stanley's 2,687 employees to evacuate the tower by putting into place advanced evacuation plans and by keeping a cool head during the attack.    There have been studies done, physiologcial and psychological, to determine if survivors have something extra or something less which makes them able to survive disasters while others perish.  Interesting stuff here. 

I Survived the 1954 Oscars

I didn't.  But anyway...I Survived is a pretty popular series right now.  The author, Lauren Tarshis is coming to Sewickley in early March and I am pretty excited!  I have only read I Survived...the Attacks of September 11, 2001 and I thought it was okay, I only gave it three of five stars, but I think that was because I remember 9/11 so well and well, any book about it, written for kids that weren't even born is going to seem to not do the horror of it justice.  How can you do the horror of it justice?  Is that even an appropriate way to word it?  It was just such a horrible, scary, unreal day.  It was just beyond words.  And I know that this was a kids' book and so it couldn't even come close to capturing the horror of it all.  So for me, because of personal stuff, I just didn't love it.  I am going to read more in the series though.  I am going to do that right now.  It is interesting because at the end of the book, Tarshis says that she didn't plan to write about 9/11, but her readers asked over and over again for her to do it.