reviews

"We're scientists,  we're here to help." Author:  Randall Munroe Creativity and imagination.  They aren’t the first traits you think of when you conjure up a typical white-coated laboratory scientist.  But then Randall Munroe isn’t your typical scientist.   The former NASA roboticist has accumulated an enthusiastic following ever since he started writing a webcomic in 2005.  Known by the four letter – and unpronounceable – nonsense word xkcd, it’s famous for its deft use of stick figure humans and a consistently humorous approach to solving myriad scientific puzzles.  This seemingly simplistic, but thoroughly entertaining approach has proven imminently successfully and Munroe [...]

Tornadoes, Hidden Wills, and Treachery Author: Connie Feddersen Book two in the Amanda Hazard cozy mystery series starts as any good cozy should: with a darkening storm, an isolated farm, and a dead body. It begins when Amanda comes to visit her cantankerous client, the isolated and generally disliked, Elmer Jolly. Already her not-so-great for the rural wilds of Oklahoma car is having issues with the pitted country backwoods roads. And there is no help out here. With lowering storm clouds, all she has seen is one speeding pickup truck, and little to no shelter.  When she gets to Jolly’s [...]

How to Make a Sensationalistic Case Boring Author: Cara Robertson Having just finished Sarah Schmidt’s See What I Have Done, a fictitious imaging of that humid summer’s day in 1892 when Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally axed to death, I decided I wanted to know a bit more about the real, non-fictitious murder. This was my first dip into the world of true crime non-fiction and there were a LOT of books on Lizzie’s life and the events that led up to the eventual, seemingly surprising “not guilty” verdict. With its high ratings, relative newness, and easy availability, the audio [...]