A Week of Reading

The heat, the "A" named hurricane of the year, thunderstorms, yep, it's July!

I went on a reading blitz for a few days, and flew threw several very different works of fiction, some serious, some less so.  It all started with a book I received for my birthday, Ship Fever.  A collection of inter-related stories  with biological sciences as a link.  Mendel, Darwin, Linnaeus, among others, make appearances.  It was strange that one of Linneaus' Apostles (as his followers were called) mentioned in this book, Pehr Osbeck, also appeared in another book I read during this blitz.  Chasing the Rose by Andrea Di Robilant mentions this man as the person who brought Chinese roses to Europe, possibly including the one that Di Robilant is chasing.  Now, I have to find out more about this person, it seems whenever some item or name suddenly starts appearing everywhere it is time for some research.  I guess I know the topic of the next couple of non-fiction books that I will check out of the library.  It is this sort of meandering reading that allows me to collect all sorts of obscure knowledge. I hope he is an interesting person.

Speaking of roses, the pretty little Julia Child roses are still the favorites of Bambi and friends, as well as the Japanese beetles.  The single blossomed rose that sits right next to them has nary a nibble.  The new Joseph's Coat roses planted to hide the "oh-so 70's" metal posts in front of the house are likewise nibble free.  There needs to be a new category of roses, ones that deer and bugs will not ravage, I'll order those.

Yellow roses play a part in The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise, another one of the books that I read...can't get away from thinking about roses, I guess.  This book was much less serious than the others, it was light and enjoyable, and a quick read.

The last two are ones that I have somehow missed, probably because I pretty much boycotted science fiction for the past two decades, after reading many really bad books in a row.  Life is too short for bad books.  I actually chose the first one from a Goodreads list for my husband, it showed up on nearly every must read list for science fiction, Ender's Game.  ( I'll let you know now, there are no roses in these books, that I can remember.)  He was reading it during out recent extended-family camping trip, when my nephew made a few comments on it.  My husband read it right through during  the trip and then I picked it up, reading it by flashlight after everyone else had gone to sleep.  I'm glad we brought extra batteries. 
We both loved the book, and now my daughter is in the process of blasting through it.  One check out from the library and three people read it, pretty efficient.  The next book was Ender's Shadow, the same story as Ender's Game, but from the perspective of a different character. Now having gone to the Amazon webpage several times to write this blog, I know there are five books in the series and book three will have to be on my list very soon.  The series can't be too long, I've a garden to tend.