Corinne Michaels has a way of grabbing your heart and never letting go. One of my favorite authors and a fantastic listen while washing dishes

Romeo and Juliet (one of my least favorite plays) set in the forest community of Shady Hollow. He’s a hardworking otter, she’s a (former) beaver heiress. Their parents can’t agree on much, but do believe the couple need to split up. The otter patriarch dies during a very dramatic, very public fight at the top of Twilight Falls. Vera Vixen, reporter, is as horrified as everyone else, but she’s the only one who feels the whole scene was . . . wrong. All clues and an anonymous note point to the young beaver lass. But her beau insists they were together in the woods and surely he wouldn’t lie to protect his father’s killer.

Donovan explores board games from ancient Egypt (senet) and Ur (the royal game of Ur) up to the biggies of the 21st century (Pandemic, Catan, and Ticket to Ride). He describes some less than ethical dealings by the big US game companies, but seems to downplay them. Trying to play nice, maybe? His chapter on Monopoly portrays the execs of Parker Brothers as being unfortunately duped instead of deliberately squashing The Landlord Game and its creator, Elizabeth Magie. It’s All a Game even touches on Google’s AlphaGo defeat of a (human) grand master go player, one of the big steps in AI development.

Love this book. Amazing story a must read

The Marlow Murder Club unites 3 women of different ages and backgrounds who all know at least one victim and suspect in a string of murders. DS Malik discourages their involvement, of course, but she has to admit that Judith, Suzie, and Becks make more breakthroughs than her understaffed team. If you like the idea of The Thursday Murder Club but not the writing, see if The Marlow Murder Club is more your cup of tea (or tumbler of whiskey).

BBC radio asked C. S. Lewis to talk about Christianity and morality for the everyman after the worldwide destruction of WWII. Lewis describes himself as an amateur Christian unable to debate the finer points of higher theology. His focus is more being a good person and living an ethical, and what that means for Christians and non-Christians. Mere Christianity is the printed version of those radio chats.

Adam Kay recounts some of the highs and lows of his medical career. Six years after leaving medicine to become a writer and script editor, Adam finds the diaries he kept while a junior doctor. He changed the names and dates, so there’s no violation of medical privacy. Most of what he shares has humor, but it’s a dark often gallows humor. And there’s no glimmer of mirth in the final entry that marked the beginning of the end for him in OB-GYN.

I will for sure read this book again. I received it as a birthday gift because of my love of hockey smut and was completely engulfed while reading. Sleep was lost but pages needed to be read.

Love the book great storyline

People traveled in the 12th-15t centuries. Merchants sought new markets, diplomats finagled treaties, and anyone who could get the necessary funding and permissions took religious pilgrimages. Bale explores the most common holy and trade routes based on what the travelers wrote in journals and guidebooks. It is very interesting, but too limited. Bale points out several times that Christians (Roman and Eastern/Greek), Muslims, and Jewish pilgrims visited many of the same places in Constantinople and Jerusalem. We only have the Christian, and almost exclusively Western European Christian, stories. One small chapter near the end follows Asian travelers’ adventures in the west. Ma Huan (Chinese Muslim), Het’um (Armenian Christian), and Rabban Bar Sauma (Christian Mongol) don’t represent the majority of nonEuropeans. A broader range of viewpoints and less personal commentary from the author would improve the book.